PDA

View Full Version : Local Expressions / coloquialisms



Malcolm Schweizer
10-17-2018, 10:08 AM
I was talking with a friend, and said someone was "crazy as a Betsy Bug." He had never heard that, and went on to say sometimes he's amused by the way I say things. I have quite a few of these- my favorite being "nuttier than a squirrel turd." I used to work with a lady who would always say, "I'll tell them just how the cow ate the cabbage." There are too many to list "More than Carter has liver pills." "Drunker than Cooter Brown." (I'm not sure who Cooter Brown was, but apparently he drank a lot.) "Dumber than a box of rocks." "Like white on rice" (to describe things that are very close to each other) "Happier than a pig in poop." "Slicker than deer snot."

What are your favorites?

Frank Pratt
10-17-2018, 10:27 AM
"That sticks out like a horse turd in a glass of milk"

Mike Null
10-17-2018, 11:06 AM
Slipperier than snot on a door knob.

I don't give a tinker's damn!

We're walkin' in tall cotton.

Eatin' high on the hog.

Bill Carey
10-17-2018, 11:11 AM
slicker than cat gut on a door knob
what in blue balzes
Bob's your uncle
cool beans
fair to middlin

blazes - (someone should invent spell check)

Matt Mattingley
10-17-2018, 11:23 AM
Dumber than a sack of hammers
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer
If it was so easy everybody would be doing it

Mike Circo
10-17-2018, 11:27 AM
"Close enough for government work."

May be a Chicago thing as our government doesn't ever finish anything.

Malcolm Schweizer
10-17-2018, 12:03 PM
I'm getting so far that there are a lot of really slick, nasty doorknobs out there. :-)

Bill Carey
10-17-2018, 12:43 PM
I'm getting so far that there are a lot of really slick, nasty doorknobs out there. :-)

LOL - gotta go wash my hands

Malcolm McLeod
10-17-2018, 4:07 PM
...What are your favorites?

Tighter than a tick in a dog's 4$$.

Tighter than a bull's butt in fly time.

Like a duck on a June bug.

Drunker than 23 Comanches. (But then I read "Empire of the Summer Moon", and learned that the Comanche are perhaps the finest light cavalry the world has ever known. So now I try to be REALLY polite!)

George Bokros
10-17-2018, 4:49 PM
He is a couple of bricks short of a full load.

His elevator doesn't go all the way to the top.

Not the sharpest pencil in the box.

Thicker than thieves.

You would complain if you were hung with a new rope.

If you can't eat it or wear it you don't need it.

Closer than two peas in a pod.

Jerome Stanek
10-17-2018, 5:07 PM
Deader than a door nail. What paddy shoot. close your eyes what do you see. sometimes you get the elevator and sometimes you get the shaft

John K Jordan
10-17-2018, 5:16 PM
"Close enough for government work."

May be a Chicago thing as our government doesn't ever finish anything.

It might be universal. Where I worked "government work" was a euphemism for "using company time and/or equipment or even supplies for personal work." Someone would bring an automobile part in and go visit his buddies in the machine shop or weld shop. The expression I heard was "good enough for government work."

The irony was this was a government facility.

JKJ

Tom M King
10-17-2018, 5:47 PM
Ugly enough to make a train take a dirt road.

James Pallas
10-17-2018, 6:02 PM
Fiddle fart'n around. Maybe better to use fettle fart'n around in this forum.
Jim

Charlie Hinton
10-17-2018, 6:08 PM
Not the sharpest marble in the bag.
Well bless your heart.....(this is very condescending)
Uglier than ten miles of muddy road at midnight.
I'm fixin' to.......means doing something sometime between right now and never.
Slicker than two eels (errrr ... making love) in a tub of snot.

James Pallas
10-17-2018, 6:10 PM
Squeaking like a rusty hinge. Higher than a steeple painter. As coordinated as a bear cub in boxing gloves. Blowing like a whale in ice.
Jim

Malcolm Schweizer
10-17-2018, 6:18 PM
Some common ones here:

Cheese and Bread, Man. - a nice way to not take the name of the Lord in vain.
Bustin a lime, or “limin”. relaxing
Big Up- like saying “props” or “shout out”
A dog neva know how big he be til he swallow a bone
what sweet in a goat’s mouth da be sour in he @$$
Mingle with the dogs, get the same fleas
Sheep nah bring de goat. (A sheep can’t birth a goat)

Patrick McCarthy
10-17-2018, 6:34 PM
. . . good enough for the girls we run with.

Peter Kelly
10-17-2018, 6:47 PM
Upstate
Any place in New York State north of Westchester. This term is used primarily by residents of NYC, not typically by anyone from actual Upstate unless you've relocated there from NYC. Similarly "Downstate" usually refers to The City.

The City
Manhattan when in one of the Outer Boroughs. Usually refers most any parts of NYC you're in NJ, Long Island and sometimes Upstate.

Downtown
Any place below either 34th St, 23rd St, 14th St, Houston or Canal Street depending on where you live in Manhattan. "Midtown" usually refers to anywhere above 34th and below 72nd though it gets a bit gray as those who live "Uptown" differ as to whether this begins at either 59th or 72nd.

Subway
The underground and sometimes above ground rail transit network operated the MTA. I've yet to find another city that actually uses this term similarly eg: Chicago "L", San Francisco "Muni" or "BART", Boston "T", LA "Metro", etc.

The Shore
More New Jersey and Philadelphia than NYC, refers to almost any beach in NJ.

Jim Koepke
10-17-2018, 7:25 PM
Out to lunch and staying for dinner. (said of someone who is off their rocker and isn't coming back or someone drunk and out for the count)

Hopping around like a one legged man in a butt kicking contest.

Nine out of ten men who tried Camels went back to women. (said when someone is lighting a Camel cigarette)

Slicker than snake snot.

jtk

Scott Donley
10-17-2018, 7:27 PM
Watch this.
Hold my beer for me .

Wayne Lomman
10-17-2018, 7:48 PM
Well, Malcolm, what a challenge, but fair crack of the sauce bottle, most of the preceding is Greek to me. I was never the sharpest tool in the shed but I have to admit that colloquialisms are my cup of tea. My preferred measurement system is based on poofteenths and bees d***s (can I say that?). My less talented friends are a few kangaroos short in the top paddock, an impossible choice leaves me between the devil and the deep blue sea, and taking a sickie is a civic duty. The only problem with taking a sickie is the boss gets a bit hot under the collar if someone dobs you in so they can suck up to the boss.

Barracking is what the US describes as rooting. Rooting is what new plants do underground when they are growing, or much more importantly, what two adults do for entertainment when they are alone together and love each other very much. Ankle biters are the result of such activity if the required precautions are not used.

Out beyond the black stump is where the few uncivilised and anti-social rural people live who find living in the bush too stressful and therefore must go further out into the mulga to find solitude (I find blokes like this in the mirror). Such people are also known to live in Timbuktu, an expression brought back by the Rats of Tobruk in WW2 (seriously). Plenty more but I had better get cracking and pull my weight on the shop floor instead of bludging in the office.

I highly recommend the books by John O'Grady, especially 'They're a Weird Mob', 'Aussie English: An Explanation of the Australian Idiom', and 'Aussie Etiket:or, Doing Things the Aussie Way'.

Cheers

Mel Fulks
10-17-2018, 8:00 PM
. . . good enough for the girls we run with.

The girlfriend of Andy Taylor ( sheriff of Mayberry) considered "run with" a vulgar term !! She got real mad at Andy!

Chris Parks
10-17-2018, 8:12 PM
Couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.
Thicker that two short planks.
If his brains were dynamite he couldn't blow his nose.
The wind is so strong it would blow a brown dog off his chain.

Doug Garson
10-17-2018, 8:17 PM
"It's a hard life but someone has to live it", usually said while relaxing on a beach lounger with a beer.
"Skookum" meaning strong
"It would look strange going up", my grandmother and mother's favorite response if someone commented on how hard the rain was coming down.
"At least you don't have to shovel it" a Vancouverite's response to eastener's complaining about Vancouver's rainy season.
"Some damn fool put it in the oven" again my grandmother/mother's response if you commented that some food item was hot.

Bill McNiel
10-17-2018, 8:34 PM
Malcolm, pretty sure you know these;

"Fall off a skotch and we might pick up a zephyr when we tack."

"Got up early to catch the morning glass."

"Wind shifted onshore and mushed up the lip"

"Tubed"

"Tucked out and made the blue"

John Goodin
10-17-2018, 9:47 PM
“We are not building a piano.” Told to me by a friend when we were setting trusses on a house and things were a little off.

Ron Citerone
10-17-2018, 10:20 PM
He couldn't spell banana if you gave him all the "A's"

Never leave fish to find fish!

Is a frog's arse watertight?

Gotta hook em to cook em.

Gotta slay em to fillet em.

The cabbage doesn't fall far from the tree.

Stephen Tashiro
10-17-2018, 10:41 PM
She had a hissy with a wire tail. (i.e. She was upset.)


We wouldn't know him from Adam's off-ox.


Once in a blue moon.

Peter Christensen
10-17-2018, 11:21 PM
The earlier reference to babies. Crib Crabs. When they get bigger they become “Ankle Biters”. Then “Yard Apes” and eventually “Garden Help “.

“A waste of oxygen” has always been a good way of describing a twit.

Chet R Parks
10-18-2018, 1:55 AM
That was like picking fly poop out of pepper with boxing gloves on.

Perry Hilbert Jr
10-18-2018, 7:00 AM
Grew up Pennsylvania Dutch, and inherited a strange linguistic mix of 18th century low German and English. Even 4th and 5th generation immigrants spoke English with a heavy German Accent. Sometimes folks spoke in English, but with the typical German word order? which resulted in "Throw the horse over the fence, some hay" Throw pop down the steps his shoes. Make me a sandwich. People often mixed in German words or slang when they spoke English, particularly where the German word fit the situation better. We moved about 80 miles from where I grew up and some words were totally new to me. I remember being fidgety in my seat at my desk and the teacher looked at me and said "Quit your "rutchin". We turn statements in to questions by adding "aint" at the end. for instance "He didn't go yet, aint?" or just making it a statement for the other person to agree with. "Nice out, ain,t" We refer to fatty gristly meat as "speck" food. Speck is German for bacon. Sometimes we combine German suffixes to words with English, for instance, "Outen the lights" meaning turn the lights off. Then we have some regional doozies. For instance, "dippy eggs" are sunny side up. Pot pie is a bizarre thick stew similar to chicken and dumplings and has no crust. The dumplings though are huge thick noodles probably 2 inches x 2 inches. We say, "Your full of baloney" to some one who is stretching the truth. When a child misbehaves and we want to scare him into behaving, we would say "the elfderdritchen will get you" When a child fell and ran to grandma for comfort, Granny would rub the affected area and recite a short poem in PA Dutch. "Heilig Heilig Hinkle Drecht, (something I do not recall) und alles recht." Some say it was a folk spell or incantation. I found out Heilig is Holy, Hinkle is Chicken and Drecht is ,,, well... " manure" We have towns named Intercourse, Blue Ball, Virginville, Yoe, Lucky, Paradise, Spry, A famous local landmark 30 years ago was the "O Yes" Hotel in Ono, Pennsylvania (it burned down) Another, still allegedly haunted is the Moonshine Church. A real church with a congregation that is still in existence. 150 years ago, six brothers who attended services there, took out an insurance policy on a guy and then killed him to collect the policy. They were all tried and IIRC, hung together on the same day. (google Blue Eyed Six) Most of the PA Dutch influence on speech in the area had disappeared, but once in a while, I hear a word crop up. Just last week, I heard a man about 30 years old refer to a cow pie as "stinkaschmutz" One of those combined English German words that folks still sometimes use. Schmutz is German for dirt, but to the PA Dutch it means something greasy or slimy. You can understand the English prefix Stink

Frederick Skelly
10-18-2018, 7:43 AM
"A self eating watermellon."

(There are several interpretations, the simplest being a thing/organization/process that serves no purpose.)

Frederick Skelly
10-18-2018, 7:51 AM
Loved the PA dutch tale Perry!

Barry McFadden
10-18-2018, 8:26 AM
"If you can't run with the big dogs stay on the porch"

Mike Null
10-18-2018, 8:48 AM
Supposedly PA Dutch: "Too soon ault, too late schmart."

Dan Hunkele
10-18-2018, 9:11 AM
If a blind man can't see it from the street it's close enough.

John K Jordan
10-18-2018, 9:27 AM
“A waste of oxygen” has always been a good way of describing a twit.

I've heard the unflattering "What a waste of good food."

----------------------------------------------------
I have no idea how "local" some of these are, and what locale - I'm a transplant.
I'll have to ask my Lovely Bride - she was born 'n raised in these here parts.

She has told me "You don't know beans." Can't be wrong there.

"He couldn't hit the side of the barn from 10 feet", same as "can't shoot for beans"

My mother told us "You weren't born in a barn", in other words, close the door.

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

"Don't let him git yer goat" or pull your leg either.

"Let sleeping dogs lie", surely universal.

"Hold your horses" and of course "so hungry I could eat a horse."

Lighten up, "Don't get your knickers all in a wad."

"He chased her and chased her and chased her 'til finally she caught him."

"I'm so poor I can't even pay attention."

"If I had your kind of money I'd burn mine."

"A day late and a dollar short."

And what I always told my kids "I'd rather be a whole lot early than a little bit late." Especially when going to the airport.

JKJ

Perry Hilbert Jr
10-18-2018, 9:31 AM
Kissin' wears out, Cookin' don't

Tim Bueler
10-18-2018, 9:49 AM
Singer/songwriter John Prine put some in a song called It's a Big Ole Goofy World. Google it, too funny!

Mike Null
10-18-2018, 10:03 AM
"A day late and a dollar short."

My dad used that all the time.

Malcolm Schweizer
10-18-2018, 10:50 AM
So glad I started this thread. All of these are great. A few comments:


Well, Malcolm, what a challenge, but fair crack of the sauce bottle, most of the preceding is Greek to me. I was never the sharpest tool in the shed but I have to admit that colloquialisms are my cup of tea. My preferred measurement system is based on poofteenths and bees d***s (can I say that?). My less talented friends are a few kangaroos short in the top paddock, an impossible choice leaves me between the devil and the deep blue sea, and taking a sickie is a civic duty. The only problem with taking a sickie is the boss gets a bit hot under the collar if someone dobs you in so they can suck up to the boss.

Barracking is what the US describes as rooting. Rooting is what new plants do underground when they are growing, or much more importantly, what two adults do for entertainment when they are alone together and love each other very much. Ankle biters are the result of such activity if the required precautions are not used.

Out beyond the black stump is where the few uncivilised and anti-social rural people live who find living in the bush too stressful and therefore must go further out into the mulga to find solitude (I find blokes like this in the mirror). Such people are also known to live in Timbuktu, an expression brought back by the Rats of Tobruk in WW2 (seriously). Plenty more but I had better get cracking and pull my weight on the shop floor instead of bludging in the office.

I highly recommend the books by John O'Grady, especially 'They're a Weird Mob', 'Aussie English: An Explanation of the Australian Idiom', and 'Aussie Etiket:or, Doing Things the Aussie Way'.

Cheers

Well done, sir- well done.


Malcolm, pretty sure you know these;

"Fall off a skotch and we might pick up a zephyr when we tack."

"Got up early to catch the morning glass."

"Wind shifted onshore and mushed up the lip"

"Tubed"

"Tucked out and made the blue"

Now you speak my language, but we say "mashed up", which is common here any time anything is wrecked. The "ed" at the end is optional- he boat all mash up.

A few others:
Only two sailors have never run aground- one never left port, and the other was an atrocious liar.

Shake out a reef, but keep her off the reef

Holy @#$* you stupid @#$%& I said get the @#$% jib in!!!!!! (very often heard when I was sailing with "Screaming Jack", from whom I learned a lot about sailing, and even more about cussing.)

You may know this, but "Ship High In Transit" used to be labeled on manure because it was very flammable. They would abbreviate it- you can figure out the rest.

"Shake a leg" came from when sailors used to sneak girls on board. In the morning, the captain would ask them to "shake out a leg" to show if it was a man or woman in the bunk.

"He who would go to sea for pleasure would go to hell to pass the time." (I disagree with this one, but it's funny)

"A man can pretend to be a lot of things, but he can only pretend to be a sailor on the way to the boat." (I've also heard it said "... until he leaves the harbor.")




"If you can't run with the big dogs stay on the porch"

Don't run with the big dogs if you can't pee in the tall grass.

michael langman
10-18-2018, 11:28 AM
Two I mad up while working in machine shops, toolrooms,, "It ain't going in the space shuttle", and. "We have the technology".

michael langman
10-18-2018, 11:35 AM
While traveling across the country at 19 years of age, I went into a McDonalds in a small town in either Tennessee or West Virginia. I ordered a hamburger with French fries, and the young woman behind the counter said to me in a very heavy, hillbilly type accent," Y'All wunt dem spuds in a sack". I looked at her and replied Huh?. with a dumfounded face. My travelling friend just stood there and laughed at me.

Peter Kelly
10-18-2018, 12:01 PM
Heard in TX Panhandle (Amarillo area) at my friend's parent's ranch:

Well I'll be dipped in sh*t!
Surprised.

Colbeer
Cold beer. eg: "I was going to get me a colbeer and then Ma went and got in the way of my program."

Well that just chaps / burns my ass
This irritates me.

Let her coast for a while
Something you've stopped doing eg: "I used to drink me a case of beer a week. Then I figured I'd just let her coast for a while"

Snatch you bald-headed
Busted! eg: "Ma's gonna snatch you bald-headed if she catches you with that colbeer"

Peter Christensen
10-18-2018, 12:50 PM
Hoodies are called Bunny Hugs here in Saskatchewan.

Dave Anderson NH
10-18-2018, 12:59 PM
"He's a slinky, not much use for anything but sometimes amusing to watch."

You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time......... and that's usually sufficient.

Jumpier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs

Finest kind

Can't get there rom here

Bill Carey
10-18-2018, 1:25 PM
from my friends in Denmark: well sh*t boys, we're in long onions now
I think it's the same as being in deep sh*t

Rod Sheridan
10-18-2018, 2:33 PM
From a German guy I worked with

"always check that the cow is brown on the other side", he would use that expression to indicate that you always check everything..............Rod.

Malcolm McLeod
10-18-2018, 2:40 PM
"He's a slinky, not much use for anything but sometimes amusing to watch."
...

= All hat, no cattle.

(maybe jus' ah TEXAS thang??)

Ken Barney
10-18-2018, 3:02 PM
"Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, and cut it with an ax." Reference to a screwed up work standard or a twisted sense of quality.

"You're livin' in high cotton." Living like you've got it made.

"Slicker than owl sh*t."

-Ken

Ole Anderson
10-18-2018, 3:25 PM
Ugly enough to make a train take a dirt road. That is one of my favorites. First heard about 40 years ago. Like a lot of them, you have to think about it a minute and really let it sink in. Picture a train jumping the tracks to get on a dirt road after seeing galactic ugly.

Colder than a well diggers elbow
About a funny as a fart in a spacesuit (From Junior high where boys are learning about gross things)
Honesty is the best politics (from my dad)
So small you could swing a cat and hit all four walls (from my MIL)

Lee Schierer
10-18-2018, 8:23 PM
Finer than frog hair.
You win some, you lose some, some get rained out and others you can't even get a ticket.

Jim Koepke
10-18-2018, 9:17 PM
Here are some more.

I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy.

He might see better if he had a plexiglass navel insert.

His depth is surpassed by a puddle in a parking lot.

I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

Even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut.

My teeth (his teeth, her teeth) sparkle like stars… and they come out at night.

He's a humble man without much about which to be humble.

jtk

Jim Koepke
10-18-2018, 9:28 PM
"He's a slinky, not much use for anything but sometimes amusing to watch."

Heard it as he's like a slinky, not much use but fun to watch tumbling down the stairs.


"Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, and cut it with an ax." Reference to a screwed up work standard or a twisted sense of quality.

During my time as a drafter we had a common note on some items, "Cut to suit." Some would add, "hammer to fit and paint to match."

jtk

William Batdorf
10-18-2018, 9:36 PM
"Funnier than a rubber crutch" is one I use often.
"Busier than a one-arm paper hanger" is another

Bill Dufour
10-18-2018, 10:51 PM
She looks like she was rolled up and put away wet.(for an ugly gal)

Doug Garson
10-18-2018, 11:47 PM
"Funnier than a rubber crutch" is one I use often.
"Busier than a one-arm paper hanger" is another
The version I'm used to includes "with hives".

Brian Deakin
10-19-2018, 4:40 AM
fit as a butcher's dog

Based on the assumption that a butcher (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/butcher)'s dog is likely to be well fed because of the ready supply of its master (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master)'s meat.

Mike Null
10-19-2018, 7:06 AM
There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Don Orr
10-19-2018, 8:50 AM
Better than a sharp stick in the eye-for when something is just OK, not great.

Karl Andersson
10-19-2018, 9:06 AM
From when I lived further south:
-He has enough money to burn a wet mule (i.e. a lot)
-That baby sure has a purty head (when you can't say the truth about the baby's looks- kind of like "bless her heart")
- Didn't know whether to gee or haw (i.e. didn't know which direction to go/ what to do; gee and haw are what you say to a mule/ horse when plowing to get it to go left or right)

Thomas L Carpenter
10-19-2018, 9:38 AM
Shorter than frog fuzz

John K Jordan
10-19-2018, 9:43 AM
"Some days you're the windshield,
and some days you're the bug."

That one must be local to me since I made it up decades ago.
But since I've heard it from strangers more recently, I'm probably not the only one or even the first.

James Pallas
10-19-2018, 10:58 AM
My all time favorite, “Don’t get in a swivet”. Meaning to anchor one foot and turn around it having no idea which direction to take. I do it often. It may involve aging.
Jim

Peter Christensen
10-19-2018, 11:31 AM
My buddy always says in reference to someone making silly mistakes.

"Nice boy but dumb. Sharp like tabletop." :rolleyes:

Charlie Hinton
10-19-2018, 11:47 AM
Why I'll swan ...... substitute for cussing......I used to hear this a lot as a kid but it's been decades since I have heard it.

You would argue with a bodark fence post.
Your head is harder than a bodark fence post.

Boy, I'll yank your arm off and beat you with the bloody end....... (heard this a lot from my father when I was not doing what he wanted ....... fortunately I made it to adulthood with both arms intact)

Crazier than bat s*%t .... or equally as popular ..... bat s*%t crazy

Jim Koepke
10-19-2018, 2:44 PM
For many years one of my enjoyments has been to save quotes. Hopefully they can be enjoyed here:


"Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo."
- H. G. Wells (1866-1946)

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."
- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)

"Don't be so humble - you are not that great."
- Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat

"His ignorance is encyclopedic"
- Abba Eban (1915-2002)

"If a man does his best, what else is there?"
- General George S. Patton (1885-1945)


"Political correctness is tyranny with manners."
- Charlton Heston (1924-)

"I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better."
- A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

"Give me chastity and continence, but not yet."
- Saint Augustine (354-430)

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei

"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work."
- Emile Zola (1840-1902)

"This book fills a much-needed gap."
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966) in a review

"The full use of your powers along lines of excellence."
- definition of "happiness" by John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

"I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart."
- e e cummings (1894-1962)

"Give me a museum and I'll fill it."
- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

"Assassins!"
- Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) to his orchestra

"I'll moider da bum."
- Heavyweight boxer Tony Galento, when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is."
- Yogi Berra

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems."
- Rene Descartes (1596-1650), "Discours de la Methode"

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right."
- Henry Ford (1863-1947)

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'."
- Yoda ('The Empire Strikes Back')

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."
- George Burns (1896-1996)

"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)


"There are no facts, only interpretations."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)


"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."
- Edsgar Dijkstra (1930-2002)


"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."
- Bjarne Stroustrup


"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems."
- Paul Erdos (1913-1996)


"Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back."
- Paul Erdos (1913-1996)


"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."
- Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)


"Dancing is silent poetry."
- Simonides (556-468bc)


"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."
- Salvador Dali (1904-1989)


"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)


"But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near."
- Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)


"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- Plato (427-347 B.C.)


"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)


"Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947-)


"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
- Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)


"We have art to save ourselves from the truth."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)


"I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it."
- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) when asked what is his favorite song


"I have nothing to declare except my genius."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) upon arriving at U.S. customs 1882


"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."
- H. G. Wells (1866-1946)


"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must."
- Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)


"The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."
- unknown


"Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship."
- Sharon Stone


"If you are going through hell, keep going."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)


"He who has a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)


"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)


"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)


"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)


"He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death."
- H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)


"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)


"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them."
- Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964)


"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
- J. Paul Getty (1892-1976)


"Facts are the enemy of truth."
- Don Quixote - "Man of La Mancha"


"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
- George Washington Carver (1864-1943)


"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself."
- Anais Nin (1903-1977)


"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
- Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)


"I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right."
- Frederick (II) the Great


"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell."
- Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)


"Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact."
- George Eliot (1819-1880)


"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
- Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)


"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
- Steven Wright


"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)


"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
- Walt Disney (1901-1966)


"We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time."
- Vince Lombardi


"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true."
- James Branch Cabell


"A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship."
- John D. Rockefeller (1874-1960)


"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)


"You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it."
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)


"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)


"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."
- Umberto Eco


"Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down."
- Jimmy Durante


"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)


"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953


"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)


"Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working."
- Albert Giacometti (sculptor)


"There's a limit to how many times you can read how great you are and what an inspiration you are, but I'm not there yet."
- Randy Pausch (1960-)


"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)


"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)


"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
- Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)


"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
- Frank Zappa


"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint Exupery


"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
- Isaac Asimov


"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)


"It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts."
- G. B. Burgin


"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
- Auric Goldfinger, in "Goldfinger" by Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964)


"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance"
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)


"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."
- Jimi Hendrix


"A clever man commits no minor blunders."
- Goethe (1749-1832)


"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours."
- Richard Bach


"A witty saying proves nothing."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)


"Sleep is an excellent way of listening to an opera."
- James Stephens (1882-1950)


"The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault."
- Henry Kissinger (1923-)


"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."
- Will Durant


"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."
- Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)


"It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)


"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti


"I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means."
- Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial, 1925.


"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
- Henry Ford (1863-1947)


"I'll sleep when I'm dead."
- Warren Zevon (1947-2003)


"There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread."
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)


"When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head."
- Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)


"Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together."
- Georg Lichtenberg (1742-1799)


"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it"
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)


"While we are postponing, life speeds by."
- Seneca (3BC - 65AD)


"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
- Bumper Sticker


"God, please save me from your followers!"
- Bumper Sticker


"Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches."
- the Duchess of Windsor, when asked what is the secret of a long and happy life


"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)


"Luck is the residue of design."
- Branch Rickey - former owner of the Brooklyn Dodger Baseball Team


"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
- Mel Brooks

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

"Wit is educated insolence."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

"My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher."
- Socrates (470-399 B.C.)

"Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
- Gore Vidal

"Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them."
- Samuel Palmer (1805-80)

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows."
- Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)

"Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny."
- Guy Davenport

"When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
- Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

"We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?"
- Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
- Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
- Paul Dirac (1902-1984)


"I would have made a good Pope."
- Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)


"In any contest between power and patience, bet on patience."
- W.B. Prescott


"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin."
- John von Neumann (1903-1957)

"The mistakes are all waiting to be made."
- chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956) on the game's opening position

"It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

"Grove giveth and Gates taketh away."
- Bob Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet) on the trend of hardware speedups not being able to keep up with software demands

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)


"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation."
- H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)


"There are two ways of constructing a software design; one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
- C. A. R. Hoare


"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)


"What do you take me for, an idiot?"
- General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), when a journalist asked him if he was happy


"I heard someone tried the monkeys-on-typewriters bit trying for the plays of W. Shakespeare, but all they got was the collected works of Francis Bacon."
- Bill Hirst


"Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do."
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)


"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)


"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)


"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)


"A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)


"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)


"Logic is in the eye of the logician."
- Gloria Steinem

"No one can earn a million dollars honestly."
- William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)


"Everything has been figured out, except how to live."
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)


"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech."
- Martin Fraquhar Tupper

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it."
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966)

"From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)

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

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."
- Goethe (1749-1832)

"In the end, everything is a gag."
- Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)

"The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people."
- Lucille S. Harper

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."
- Yogi Berra

"I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known."
- Walt Disney (1901-1966)

"He who hesitates is a damned fool."
- Mae West (1892-1980)

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater."
- Gail Godwin

"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."
- Henry Kissinger (1923-)

"The graveyards are full of indispensable men."
- Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)

"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty."
- Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)

"Behind every great fortune there is a crime."
- Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

"If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning."
- Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)


"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
- General George Patton (1885-1945)

"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"I don't even butter my bread; I consider that cooking."
- Katherine Cebrian

"I have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it."
- Steven Wright

"Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour."
- Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)

"Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure."
- Oliver Herford (1863-1935)

"I have read your book and much like it."
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966)

"The covers of this book are too far apart."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."
- Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)

"When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before."
- Mae West (1892-1980)

"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."
- Elvis Presley (1935-1977)

"No Sane man will dance."
- Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

"Hell is a half-filled auditorium."
- Robert Frost (1874-1963)

"Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you."
- Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

"Vote early and vote often."
- Al Capone (1899-1947)

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"Few things are harder to put up with than a good example."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"Hell is other people."
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
- Robert J. Oppenheimer (1904-1967) (citing from the Bhagavad Gita, after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion)

"Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
- Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982)

"Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate."
- Thomas Jones

"You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."
- Al Capone (1899-1947)

"The gods too are fond of a joke."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

"Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes."
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting."
- Gloria Leonard

"It is time I stepped aside for a less experienced and less able man."
- Professor Scott Elledge on his retirement from Cornell

"Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work."
- Robert Orben

"The cynics are right nine times out of ten."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)


"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."
- Revelation 6:8


"Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance."
- Plato (427-347 B.C.)

"Plato was a bore."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal."
- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

"I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy."
- Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

"Hemingway was a jerk."
- Harold Robbins


"Men are not disturbed by things, but the view they take of things."
- Epictetus (55-135 A.D.)


"What about things like bullets?"
- Herb Kimmel, Behavioralist, Professor of Psychology, upon hearing the above quote (1981)



"How can I lose to such an idiot?"
- A shout from chessmaster Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935)

"Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday."
- Woody Allen (1935-)

"I don't feel good."
- The last words of Luther Burbank (1849-1926)

"Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure."
- Ross MacDonald (1915-1983)

"Men have become the tools of their tools."
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"It is now possible for a flight attendant to get a pilot pregnant."
- Richard J. Ferris, president of United Airlines

"I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."
- Gore Vidal

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
- Woody Allen (1935-)

"Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives."
- Abba Eban (1915-2002)


"A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually."
- Abba Eban (1915-2002)

"To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me."
- Charles William Stubbs

"Sanity is a madness put to good uses."
- George Santayana (1863-1952)

"Imitation is the sincerest form of television."
- Fred Allen (1894-1956)

"Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take."
- Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)

"Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research."
- Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)

"Why don't you write books people can read?"
- Nora Joyce to her husband James (1882-1941)

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."
- T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

"Criticism is prejudice made plausible."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"It is better to be quotable than to be honest."
- Tom Stoppard

"Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting."
- Karl Wallenda

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."
- Sun Tzu

"A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar."
- Lao-Tzu (570?-490? BC)

" The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
- Alan Kay

"Never mistake motion for action."
- Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)


"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
- Sir Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-1971)

"Hell is paved with good samaritans."
- William M. Holden

"The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"Silence is argument carried out by other means."
- Ernesto"Che"Guevara (1928-1967)

"Well done is better than well said."
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

"The average person thinks he isn't."
- Father Larry Lorenzoni

"Heav'n hath no rage like love to hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd."
- William Congreve (1670-1729)

"A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted."
- Helen Rowland (1876-1950)

"Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century."
- Lewis Perelman

"Dogma is the sacrifice of wisdom to consistency."
- Lewis Perelman


"Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)


"The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready."
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"There is a country in Europe where multiple-choice tests are illegal."
- Sigfried Hulzer

"Ask her to wait a moment - I am almost done."
- Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), while working, when informed that his wife is dying

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943

"I think it would be a good idea."
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western civilization

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" "
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy."
- Von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."
- Irving Kristol

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible."
- A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
- H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood."
- General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one."
- Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
- last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
- Tom Clancy

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), "The Prince"

"Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame."
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

"The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep."
- Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live

"We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."
- Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks

"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
- Yogi Berra

"There is only one nature - the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole."
- Bill Wulf

"There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."
- Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)


(1874-1965)


"I criticize by creation - not by finding fault."
- Cicero (106-43 B.C.)


"Love is friendship set on fire."
- Jeremy Taylor


"God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time."
- Robin Williams, commenting on the Clinton/Lewinsky affair


"My occupation now, I suppose, is jail inmate."
- Unibomber Theodore Kaczynski, when asked in court what his current profession was


"Woman was God's second mistake."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"This isn't right, this isn't even wrong."
- Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), upon reading a young physicist's paper


"For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)


"Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)


"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)


"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."
- Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.


"Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run."
- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)


"He would make a lovely corpse."
- Charles Dickens (1812-1870)


"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb


"I worship the quicksand he walks in."
- Art Buchwald


"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)


"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
- Paul Valery (1871-1945)


"We are not retreating - we are advancing in another Direction."
- General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)


"If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?"
- Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of supercomputing


"#3 pencils and quadrille pads."
- Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when asked what CAD tools he used to design the Cray I supercomputer; he also recommended using the back side of the pages so that the grid lines were not so dominant.


"Interesting - I use a Mac to help me design the next Cray."
- Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when he was told that Apple Inc. had recently bought a Cray supercomputer to help them design the next Mac.

"Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis."
- Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

"I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need."
- Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"The truth is more important than the facts."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
- Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)

"There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive ~ JFK

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.
– Edward R. Murrow


If this isn't acceptable, the moderators will hopefully take care of it in their manner.

jtk

James Runchey
10-20-2018, 10:55 AM
Very enjoyable, Jim

Patrick McCarthy
10-20-2018, 11:28 AM
Jim, excellent collection. Thank you for sharing. Patrick

John K Jordan
10-20-2018, 1:01 PM
I saved those in a file for later. It would take me 1/2 hour to read and appreciate them!

Jim Koepke
10-20-2018, 1:19 PM
Very enjoyable, Jim


Jim, excellent collection. Thank you for sharing. Patrick


I saved those in a file for later. It would take me 1/2 hour to read and appreciate them!

Glad you all liked them. There are a few different selections of quotes on file. They are some partially redundant files. Some are from a single person, often political in the form of famous quotes of XYZ. There are some from sports figures and others. This file is among my top favorites.

In my childhood 23 Skidoo and the Bee's Knees were very old. Still some people still try to pull the wool over your eyes. Mostly by telling the same old lies. If you know when to hold them and when to fold them you will be better off than the person that doesn't know whether they should fish or cut bait.

jtk

-my first post using the multi-quote feature.

Malcolm Schweizer
10-20-2018, 4:18 PM
Strong like bull; smart like tractor.

James Waldron
10-21-2018, 10:08 PM
Good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise!

John K Jordan
10-21-2018, 10:16 PM
"Have at it."

Is that local or universal? I've only heard it in the south.

JKJ

Bill Dufour
10-21-2018, 11:49 PM
A few bricks shy of a load.
bats in the belfry.
Watch the submarine races with your girl.

When my mother worked on the Manhattan project in Tennessee. the FBI. made them stop referring to Oak Ridge as "Podunk". The FBI felt that name would arouse interest rather then deflect it away. I believe a comic strip of the time was set in the town of Podunk.

Bill D.

on dit; It might have been "Dog Patch"

Jim Koepke
10-22-2018, 1:44 AM
"Have at it."

Is that local or universal? I've only heard it in the south.

JKJ

Pretty sure "have at it" is universal. It has been heard often in my travels.

jtk

James Runchey
10-22-2018, 8:22 AM
"Crooked as a dogs hind leg"

Al Launier
10-22-2018, 9:19 AM
Colder than a witch's tit.
Hotter than the hinges of hell.

Al Launier
10-22-2018, 9:25 AM
Colder than a witch's tit.
Hotter than the hinges of hell.
Thoughts entering one's mind need not exit one's mouth - my original that I sometimes use on a talkative person, i.e. wife (my own Kelly Ann Conway).

Malcolm Schweizer
10-22-2018, 10:28 AM
Colder than a witch's tit.
Hotter than the hinges of hell.
Thoughts entering one's mind need not exit one's mouth - my original that I sometimes use on a talkative person, i.e. wife (my own Kelly Ann Conway).

Somehow this reminds me of "More nervous than a whore in church." I once invited one of my sailing buddies to church- a salty fellow who personifies all stereotypes of sailors and fishermen. He turned to me and said, "I'm more nervous than a whore in church..... heck... right now I AM a whore in church!!!" I'll never forget that.

Kev Williams
10-22-2018, 2:23 PM
Busier than a blind dog in a butcher shop--

I'd be all over that like stink on $#!*
-or- white on rice

if it don't move, paint it

One my dad used-
Uglier than a mud-woman's fart

what to say about an ugly baby?
"He's as cute as he can be!"

what I tell my customers when I'm really busy:
"I'm so far behind I can see my a$$ with a pair of binoculars"

to the boss who just fired you-
"I was lookin' for a job when I found this one"

And the overused phrase that makes me grit my teeth:
"No worries"

Mike Chance in Iowa
10-22-2018, 3:17 PM
These are all great. Here's some I can think of during my break:

The train has already left the station.

Half of each and neither of the either.

Don't believe everything you think.

Whatever floats your boat.
Whatever cranks your tractor.

Madder then a wet hen.


Some zingers:
He/she strives to be adequate.
He/she would argue with a signpost.
He/she has an intellect rivaled only by garden tools.
He/she has it floored in neutral.
Slinky's kinked.
Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.


Break time is over. Back to work for me. ..... I'm so busy I don't know if I found a rope or lost my horse.

Frederick Skelly
10-22-2018, 8:53 PM
Great collection Jim!

Bill Dufour
10-22-2018, 11:51 PM
six of one half a dozen of the other. I guess it describes a choice between two equal things?

Andrew Seemann
10-23-2018, 1:14 AM
I used to work with a lot of farm kids from southern Minnesota, below are some that I picked up. Translations in parentheses.

Bindin' hay John Deere (effin' A bubba)
Close enough to pi$$ on
It ain't a church (it is good enough)
About as useful as t*ts on a boar
Son of a biscuit
God bless it (god d@mmit)

Those were some of the more polite ones.

Relating to the Pennsylvania Dutch story, myself I grew up in an urban area but with heavy Swedish ancestry on my mother's side (20 minutes into Christmas and our accents get worse than Fargo) and German on my dad's (you can always tell a German, you just can't tell him much) and as a result to this day, I still can't get prepositions right in Standard English. For us, "Are you coming with?" apparently translates to "Are you coming along?" to the rest of the country "Are you coming with?" is an almost literal translation of the German "Kommst du mit?" Here "Are you coming along?" is missing an object of the preposition. To us it should be something like "Are you coming along the side of the house" or something like that.

Jason Roehl
10-23-2018, 6:48 AM
Looks good from my house! (said on a jobsite)

It ain't going to my house...ship it! (said in a factory)

Good enough for government work!

He's more annoying than tangled pubes.

He's walking around dead, just doesn't have enough sense to lay down.

Frederick Skelly
10-23-2018, 6:58 AM
What a great thread! Andrew, I love the German and Swede stories.

I thought of one more: "I'm gonna rip off your head and spit in your neck!" (You've made me very angry.)

Ken Fitzgerald
10-23-2018, 12:11 PM
"That calf doesn't suck".....farm boy expression when doubting something someone's said.

Bill Carey
10-23-2018, 12:57 PM
Bob's your uncle

Patrick McCarthy
10-23-2018, 2:19 PM
Colder than a witch's tit.
Hotter than the hinges of hell.

Al, I think the second part re the witch's mammary gland is " . . . in a brass bra in the middle of February."

John K Jordan
10-23-2018, 3:03 PM
Heard it as he's like a slinky, not much use but fun to watch tumbling down the stairs.


The way I heard it was meaner: "but fun to push down the stairs."

Frederick Skelly
10-23-2018, 7:37 PM
Al, I think the second part re the witch's mammary gland is " . . . in a brass bra in the middle of February."

Yah, that's the way I always heard it Patrick!

Chuck Ellis
10-26-2018, 12:43 PM
That is one of my favorites. First heard about 40 years ago. Like a lot of them, you have to think about it a minute and really let it sink in. Picture a train jumping the tracks to get on a dirt road after seeing galactic ugly.


About a funny as a fart in a spacesuit (From Junior high where boys are learning about gross things)
Honesty is the best politics (from my dad)
So small you could swing a cat and hit all four walls (from my MIL)


Colder than a well diggers elbow( I've always here this one with a different part of the diggers anatomy - another word for his rear) (Another I've heard is "Colder than a Witch's mammary glands that rhyme with twit.)

Kim Gibbens
10-26-2018, 2:09 PM
Cold enough to freeze the nuts off a bridge.

Jim Koepke
10-26-2018, 7:39 PM
Cold enough to freeze the nuts off a bridge.

Or a brass monkey.

jtk

Robbie Buckley
10-27-2018, 2:41 AM
Flat out like a lizard drinking = very busy.
Dry as rocking horse turds - obv.
Black as the inside of a cow - for a really dark night.
Sharp as a bowling ball.
Ugly enough to scare the warts off a toad.
Like trying to pick up a turd by the clean end = impossible.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead/couple of sandwiches short of a picnic/a sixpack short of a slab = someone a bit slow.
So ugly the doctor slapped your mother.

And one I use occasionally on my students: 300 million sperm and you were the fastest?
Cheers, Robbie.

Frederick Skelly
10-27-2018, 7:41 AM
300 million sperm and you were the fastest?

Ack. Choke. Sputter. Splat!
(Spit coffee all over the monitor when I read that. Good one Robbie!)

Jim Koepke
10-28-2018, 12:43 PM
If your going to be a phony, at least be sincere about it.

jtk

Doug Hepler
11-12-2018, 9:12 AM
An old New England saying "Uglier than a mud fence"
When I lived in Iowa I learned "Slicker than $4it through a goose"; "Shaking like a dog $4itting peach pits" (I did not know they had that many peaches in Iowa.

BTW "Close enough for government work" originally meant that something met exacting standards. Now it means the opposite.

Doug

Tony Zona
11-12-2018, 10:59 AM
That "brass monkey" thing? I heard it’s from seamen. The metal thing they stacked cannon balls on was a brass monkey.

So cold it would freeze the balls off a brass monkey.


Also . . .

— ugly enough to make a jackass back away from an oat bin.

— makin’ more noise than a jackass in a tin barn.

— rainin’ harder than a cow pissin’ on a flat rock.

Jim Koepke
11-12-2018, 2:05 PM
— rainin’ harder than a cow pissin’ on a flat rock.

The common knowledge about this flat rock phenomenon has helped me to have fun and cause a few laughs. In my case the set-up story is about a buffalo versus the flat rock and why the buffalo nickel was discontinued:

396489

There is a different story about the back of the Jefferson nickel once displaying a fountain on the lawn of Monticello that had to be removed from the design:

396490

On the buffalo nickel there is a hole drilled in the C of Cents. On the Jefferson nickel the hole is drilled in the O of Of.

Sometimes the same person will fall for the joke with two different nickels. My aim is usually to go over their shoulder instead of in the face.

They have been some good cheap fun.

jtk

Dennis Peacock
11-12-2018, 2:56 PM
Ya gotta be smarter'n what you're workin' with.
Meaning.....People as well as objects. Can't turn on a new power tool.....ya gotta be smarter'n what you workin' with. (use the power switch :) )

Todd Bender
11-13-2018, 10:20 PM
From East Texas area, Mom'nem. Mom and them, i.e. the whole family.

Flamone LaChaud
11-15-2018, 4:48 PM
"His men only follow him out of a sense of morbid curiosity" A leader that has no business being in the role . . .
"Every time he talks, I need a foghorn" Someone who is notorious for speaking with authority about things he knows nothing about.
"He's a politician in training" Someone who combines the best of the previous two sayings . . .

Bruce Wrenn
11-16-2018, 9:43 PM
"When a cat has kittens in the oven, it don't make them biscuits." If it ain't broke, then don't fix it. Colder than a well diggers butt.