A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons whose aide may contribute to the advancement of his fortune.
- La Bruyere
As riches and favor forsake a man, we discover him to be a fool, but nobody could find it out in his prosperity.
- La Bruyere
He is poor whose expenses exceeds his income.
- La Bruyere
Modesty is to merit as shades to figures in a picture; giving it strength and beauty.
- La Bruyere
Every editor of newspapers pays tribute to the Devil.
- La Fontaine
Help yourself, and Heaven will help you.
- La Fontaine
I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time believe that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment of religion.
- La Place
Ability wins us the esteem of the true men; luck that of the people.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Age is a tyrant, who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
An extraordinary haste to discharge an obligation is a sort of ingratitude.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Extreme avarice is always mistaken; there is no passion which is oftener further away from its mark, nor upon which the present has so much power to the prejudice of the future.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure which is useful to them, to praise which deceives them.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Flattery is a sort of bad money, to which our vanity gives currency.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Gallantry consists in saying the most empty things in an agreeable manner.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Gravity is a mystery of the body, invented to conceal the defects of the mind.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
However deceitful hope may be, she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Hypocracy is the homage which vice pays to virtue.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
If we had no defects ourselves, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
In the intercourse of life we please, often, by our defects than by our good qualities.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
It is far easier to be wise for others than to be so for oneself.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
It is far easier to know men than to know man.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
It is more disgraceful to distrust one’s friends than to be deceived by them.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
It seems that nature has concealed at the bottom of our minds, talents and abilities of which we are not aware. The passions alone have the privilege of bringing them to light, and of giving us sometimes views more certain and more perfect than art could possible produce.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy: we do not easily believe beyond what we see.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire of appearing so.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
On n’est jamais si heureux ni si malheureux qu’on s’imagine. (One is never so happy or so unhappy as one thinks.)
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Passion often makes a madman of the cleverest man, and renders the greatest fools clever.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
People would never fall in love if they had not heard love talked about.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Perfect valor is to do unwitnessed what we should be capable of doing before all the world.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Self-love is the greatest of flatterers.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
The more we love, the nearer we are to hate.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
The passions are the only orators that always persuade.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
The passions often engender their contraries.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
The reason that lovers never weary each other is because they are always talking about themselves.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
There is a kind of greatness which does not depend upon fortune; it is a certain manner that distinguishes us, and which seems to destine us for great things; it is the value we insensibly set upon ourselves; it is by this quality, that we gain the deference of other men, and it is this which commonly raises us more above them, than birth, rank, or even merit itself.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Those only are despicable who fear to be despised.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Those who bestow too much application of trifling things, become generally incapable of great ones.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, not all that could be.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
We never desire earnestly what we desire in reason.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
We often boast that we are never bored, yet we are so conceited that we do not perceive how often we bore others.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
We should often be ashamed of our very best actions, if the world only saw the motives which caused them.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.
- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
To love and to be wise is scarcely granted to the highest.
- Laberius
The affections are like lightning; You cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen
- Jean Baptiste Lacoraire
18,000 dollars a year and all I’ve I got to show for it is an Andrew account and no sleep.
- Jay Laefer
The policy is no eating, not no food. If it was no food, I’d invite Gary into the cluster and start gnawing on him.
- Jay Laefer
When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.
- R. A. Lafferty
You never know where bottom is until you plumb for it.
- Frederick Laing
Insanity: aperfectly rational adjustment to the insane world.
- R. D. Laing
Perhaps God is not dead; perhaps God is himself mad.
- R. D. Laing
Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys.
- Lamartine
Man never fastened one end of a chain around the neck of his brother, that God’s own hand did not fasten around the neck of the oppressor.
- Lamartine
I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father’s religion, if they can find out what it is.
- Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Lawers, I suppose, were children once.
- Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more.
- Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Nothing to me is more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a newly married couple.
- Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
The measure of choosing well is whether a man likes what he has chosen.
- Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Most people exhibit what political scientists call the conservatism of the peasantry. Don’t lose what you’ve got. Don’t change. Don’t take a chance, because you might end up starving to death. Play it safe. Buy just as much as you need. Don’t waste time. When we think about risk, human beings and corporations realize in their heads that risks are necessary to grow, to survive. But when it comes down to keeping good people when the crunch comes, or investing money in something untried, only the brave reach deep into their pockets and play the game as it must be played.
- David Lammers
All this progress is marvelous . . . now if only it would stop!
- Allan Lamport
I’m lost, but I’m making record time.
- Allan Lamport
A distributed system is one that stops you from getting any work done when a machine you’ve never even heard of crashes.
- Leslie Lamport (Attributed)
The two main design principles of the NeXT machine appear to be revenge and spite.
- Don Lancaster
Levity is the soul of wit.
- Melville D. Landon
Absence and death are the same-only that in death there is no suffering.
- Walter S. Landor
Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd.
- Walter Savage Landor
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
- Bert Lantz
A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, "We did this ourselves."
- Lao-Tse
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
- Lao-Tse
The circumstances of the modern world make nonsense of the pretensions to moral or intellectual granduer.
- Lewis Lapham
I’ll never discuss my lawyer’s character in his absence, so let’s discuss his absence of character
- Michael Lara
Atoms are made up of electrons and protons (protons are also nothing). Fifty billion electrons placed side by side in a straight line would stretch across the period at the end of this sentence. Protons are heavier but take up less space. Such an idea is incapable of being absorbed by the human mind.
- John Lardner and Thomas Sugrue
Shut up he explained.
- Ring Lardner (1885-1933), "The Young Immigrants", 1920
Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.
- Doug Larson
If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing pole.
- Doug Larson
The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.
- Doug Larson
The cat could very well be man’s best friend but would never stoop to admit it.
- Doug Larson
The surprising thing about young fools is how many survive to become old fools.
- Doug Larson
Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, opulence is when you have three- and paradise is when you have none.
- Doug Larson
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.
- Doug Larson
By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect ’Hungry.’
- Gary Larson, "The Far Side"
The bozone layer: shielding the rest of the solar system from the Earth’s harmful effects.
- Gary Larson, "The Far Side"
"Off days" are a part of life, I guess, whether you’re a cartoonist, a neurosurgeon, or an air-traffic controller.
- Gary Larson.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
- Christopher Lasch
What if somebody wrote a good operating system and no one ran it?
- Charles Lasner
I’ve found thats it’s not good to talk about your troubles. Eighty percent of the people who hear them don’t care and the other twenty percent are glad your having trouble.
- Tommy LaSorda
It was always thus; and even if ’twere not, ’twould inevitably have been always thus.
- Dean Lattimer
I think your cats need tuning - according to a couple of quick measurements on a recently calibrated reference cat, the dominant frequency of a correctly adjusted cat should be 12Hz +/-20%.
- Lionel Lauer on a.s.r
When guns are outlawed, how will we handle frat boys?
- Kurt Laughlin, on cs.opinion
The Constitution does not grant rights, it recognizes them.
- Jason Laumark
A habit of sneering marks the egotist, or the fool, or the knave, or all three.
- Lavater
Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity.
- Lavater
Be neither too early in the fashion, nor too long out of it; nor at any time in the extremities of it.
- Lavater
Call him Wise whose actions, words, and steps are all a clear Because to a clear Why.
- Lavater
Depend on no man, on no friend, but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously towards himself will act so towards others, and vice versa.
- Lavater
He alone is an acute observer who can observe minutely without being observed.
- Lavater
He who comes from the kitchen, smells of its smoke; and he who adheres to a sect, has something of its cant; the college air pursues the student; and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants.
- Lavater
He who reforms himself, has done more towards reforming the public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots.
- Lavater
He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best requisites of man.
- Lavater
He who when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth, tells it boldly and has done, is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice and never ceases nibbling.
- Lavater
He whose pride oppresses the humble may, perhaps, be humbled, but will never be humble.
- Lavater
She neglects her heart who studies her glass.
- Lavater
The creditor whose appearance gladdens the the heart of a debtor, may hold his head in sunbeams and his foot on storms.
- Lavater
The manner of giving, shows the character of the giver, more than the gift itself.
- Lavater
The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.
- Lavater
There are but three classes of men: the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.
- Lavater
Too much gravity argues a shallow mind.
- Lavater
Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends.
- Lavater
Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence.
- Lavater
Who purposely cheats his friend, would cheat his God.
- Lavater
It is impossible to dissociate language from science or science from language, because every natural science always involves three things: the sequence of phenomena on which the science is based; the abstract concepts which call these phenomena to mind; and the words in which the concepts are expressed. To call forth a concept a word is needed; to portray a phenomenon, a concept is needed. All three mirror one and the same reality.
- Antoine L. Lavoisier, 1789
The art of drawing conclusions from experiments and observations consists in evaluating probabilities and in estimating whether they are sufficiently great or numerous enough to constitute proofs. This kind of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than it is commonly thought to be. . .
- Antoine Lavoisier
The honeymoon is over when the phones that he’ll be late for supper- and she has already left a note that it’s in the refrigerator.
- Bill Lawrence
I like relativity and quantum theories
Because I don’t understand them
And they make me feel as if space shifted
About like a swan that can’t settle
Refusing to sit still and be measured
And as if the atom were an impulsive thing
Always changing its mind.
- D. H. Lawrence
Men can suck the heady juice of exalted self-importance from the bitter weed of failure - failures are usually the most conceited of men.
- D. H. Lawrence
One watches them on the seashore, all the people, and there is something pathetic, almost wistful in them, as if they wished their lives did not add up to this scaly nullity of possession, but as if they could not escape. It is a dragon that has devoured us all: these obscene, scaly houses, this insatiable struggle and desire to possess, to possess always and in spite of everything, this need to be an owner, lest one be owned. It is too hideous and nauseating. Owners and owned, they are like the two sides of a ghastly disease. One feels a sort of madness come over one, as if the world had become hell. But it is only superimposed: it is only a temporary disease. It can be cleaned away.
- D. H. Lawrence
All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
- T. E. Lawrence, "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
There is a time in the tides of men, Which, taken at its flood, leads on to success. On the other hand, don’t count on it.
- T. K. Lawson
The phone will not ring until you leave your desk and walk to the other end of the building.
- Linda A. Lawyer
The secret of dealing successfully with a child is not to be its parent.
- Mel Lazarus
At the bidding of a Peter the Hermit millions of men hurled themselves against the East; the words of an hallucinated enthusiast such as Mahomet created a force capable of triumphing over the Graeco-Roman world; an obscure monk like Luther bathed Europe in blood. The voice of a Galileo or a Newton will never have the least echo among the masses. The inventors of genius hasten the march of civilization. The fanatics and the hallucinated create history.
- Gustave Le Bon
A sportsman is a man who, every now and then, simply has to go out and kill something.
- Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)
Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
- Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)
Golf may be played on Sunday, not being a game within the view of the law, but being a form of moral effort.
- Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)
I once asked a Christmas Eve group of children if they believed in Santa Claus. The very smallest ones answered without hesitation, "Why, of course!" The older ones shook their heads. The little girls smiled but said nothing. One future scientist asserted boldly "I know who it is"; and a little make-strong with his eye on gain said: "I believe in it all; I can believe in anything." That boy, I realized, would one day be a bishop.
- Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)
Writing is not hard. Just get paper and pencil, sit down and write it as it occurs to you. The writing is easy- it’s the occurring that’s hard.
- Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)
The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.
- Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project
Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
- Frank Leahy
If a thing is done wrong often enough, it becomes right.
- Richard A. Leahy
Volume is a defense to error.
- Richard A. Leahy
You get fifteen democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions.
- Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), May 1990
I would go so far as to suggest that, were it not for our ego and concern to be different, the African apes would be included in our family, the Hominidae.
- Richard Leakey
Pursuing the religious life today without using psychedelics drugs is like studying astronomy with the naked eye because that’s how they did it in the first century A.D., and besides, telescopes are unnatural.
- Timothy Leary, "The Politics of Ecstasy"
There are three side effects of acid. Enchanced long term memory, decreased short term memory, and I forget the third.
- Timothy Leary
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
- Timothy Leary
I was much distressed by next door people who had twin babies and played the violin; but one of the twins died, and the other has eaten the fiddle - so all is peace.
- Edward Lear (1812-1888)
Men with gray eyes are generally keen, energetic, and at first cold; but you may depend upon their sympathy with real sorrow. Search the ranks of our benevolent men and you will agree with me.
- Dr. Leask
All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.
- Fran Lebowitz
Being a woman is of special interest to aspiring male transexuals. To actual women it is simply a good excuse not to play football.
- Fran Lebowitz
Favorite animal: steak.
- Fran Lebowitz
Humility is no substitute for a good personality.
- Fran Lebowitz
I figure you have the same chance of winning the lottery whether you play or not
- Fran Lebowitz
If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.
- Fran Lebowitz
If you can stay in love for more than two years, you’re on something.
- Fran Lebowitz
If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies.
- Fran Lebowitz
Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep.
- Fran Lebowitz
No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation.
- Fran Lebowitz
The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.
- Fran Lebowitz
Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.
- Fran Lebowitz
When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.
- Fran Lebowitz
There is no possible line of conduct which has not at some time and place been condemned, and which at some other time and place been enjoined as a duty.
- William Lecky
Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.
- Stanislaw J. Lec
I give you bitter pills in sugar coating. The pills are harmless: the poison is in the sugar.
- Stanislaw J. Lec
Never lie when the truth is more profitable.
- Stanislaw J. Lec
People find life entirely too time-consuming.
- Stanislaw J. Lec
Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s; and unto human beings, what?
- Stanislaw J. Lec
The consumer’s side of the coffin lid is never ostentatious.
- Stanislaw J. Lec
What a pity that the only way to heaven is in a hearse!
- Stanislaw J. Lec
You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.
- Stanislaw J. Lec
There once was a time when all people beleived in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.
- Richard Lederer, "Anguished English"
Live TV died in the late 1950s, electronic bulletin boards came along in the mid-1980s, meaning there was about a 25-year gap when it was difficult to put your foot in your mouth and have people all across the country know about it.
- Mark Leeper
You have to be deviant if you’re going to do anything new.
- David Lee
To the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country.
- General Henry Lee
God is love, but get it in writing.
- Gypsy Rose Lee
She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to.
- Gypsy Rose Lee
Hope is the fawning traitor of the mind, which, while it cozens with a color’d friendship robs us of our best virtue-resolution.
- Lee
Duty then is the sublimest word in the English language. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more, you should never wish to do less.
- Robert E. Lee
The education of a man is never completed until he dies.
- Robert E. Lee
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
- Ursula K. LeGuin
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987
If I can’t get people to commit themselves on whether or not there is a square root of two, then I won’t touch on God or anything here.
- Tom Lehrer, lecturing in "The Nature of Math", 4/4/90
On my income tax 1040 it says ’Check this box if you are blind.’ I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away.
- Tom Lehrer, lecturing in "The Nature of Math", 4/4/90
Angels we have heard on High
Tell us to go out and Buy.
- Tom Lehrer
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
- Tom Lehrer
If anyone disagrees with anything I say, I am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever said it.
- Tom Lehrer
The Army has carried the American ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on the grounds of ability.
- Tom Lehrer
By establishing real money, men rule out its debasement.
- Lewis E. Lehrman
The implied convertibility between a unit of real money produced by labor and an article of wealth created by human labor for the market must be assured. Therefore, the value of the monetary unit should have a real objective regulator.
- Lewis E. Lehrman
The value of money has an objective regulator only when it it linked to a real commodity, like gold, itself requiring the cost of human labor to be produced. By comparison, the value of inconvertinle paper money has no objective regulator, its marginal cost of production being nearly zero.
- Lewis E. Lehrman
Money, therefore, if it is to be anything, must be at least an efficient and trustworthy instrument by which working people accumulate savings.
- Lewis E. Lehrnman
Many people go throughout life committing partial suicide- destroying their talents, energies, creative qualities. Indeed, to learn how to be good to oneself is often more difficult than to learn how to be good to others.
- Joshua Leibman
Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phatasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it.
- Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)
It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labour of calculation which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.
- Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)
It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
- Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)
Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver, and I want you to know that I just threw your stinkin’ tree overboard. Now what’s all this crud about no movie tonight?
- Jack Lemmon as Ensign Pulver, "Mr. Roberts"
A genius is an innovator who has got stuck in his innovation, his mind having been fashioned into a key for opening matters hitherto closed. Since many locks can be opened by a single key, genius, if sufficiently universal, appears versatile to you. Yet the fertility of a genius depends less on his key, and more on the issues locked away from you which the key fits.
- GOLEM, lecture XLIII Stanislaw Lem, Imaginary Magnitude
Cancel me not - for what then shall remain?
Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n,
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die
Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(phi)!
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
I’ll grant the random access to my heart,
Thoul’t tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love’s lemmas prove
And in our bound partition never part.
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our symptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn’t a care: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter - for they had a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it was all they had - first they saved up all their atoms, then they put them all together, and if one didn’t fit, why they chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ...
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide.
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the corners as bodies of a lower grade ...
- Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad
Democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another.
- Lenin, *State and Revolution* (1919), ch. 4
A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
- Lenin
There’s a great woman behind every idiot.
- John Lennon (1941-1980) on Yoko Ono
Life is what’s going on while your making other plans
- John Lennon
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak.
- Jay Leno
How would it be if we discovered that aliens only stopped by earth to let their kids take a leak?
- Jay Leno
The original Star Trek crew is getting a little old. Capt. Kirk just flew the Enterprise 2 million light years with the left turn signal on.
- Jay Leno
They’re filming Rocky V now. This one’s being billed as "Rocky’s Greatest Challenge," so I guess there’s an IQ test involved.
- Jay Leno
Well, Thurgood Marshall retired, so that wasn’t an earthquake we felt last Friday. It was the whole country moving a few inches to the right.
- Jay Leno
I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be wild in. To what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?
- Aldo Leopold
Life is too serious to be taken seriously.
- Mike Leonard
Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
- Aldo Leopold
I like being single. I’m always there when I need me.
- Art Leo
Nor is it very difficult to understand why a Canadian passport should be so popular. Part of the explanation is that with it one can travel easily almost anywhere. Another reason for the popularity of the little blue booklet stamped in gold is that one can speak English or French or Ukranian or Polish or Chinese and still be a Canadian. One can, in fact, be almost anyone and still be a Canadian; and to be a Canadian is to have a passport to the whole world.
- Douglas Lepan
The bigger the man, the less likely he is to object to caricature.
- Guernsey Le Pelley
Wickedness may prosper for a awhile, but in the long run, he that seta all knaves at work will pay them.
- L’Estrange
According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don’t care too much. Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime.
- David Letterman, "Late Night with David Letterman"
Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking.
- Jerome Lettvin
A pun is the lowest form of humor- when you don’t think of it first.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Happiness is not something you experience, it’s something you remember
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I am no more humble than my talents require.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I don’t drink; I don’t like it - it makes me feel good
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I envy people who drink - at least they know what to blame everything on.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I knew her before she was a virgin.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I once said cynically of a politician, "He’ll doublecross that bridge when he comes to it"
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I’m a controversial figure: my friends either dislike me or hate me.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
I’m going to memorize your name and throw my head away.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Marriage is a triumph of habit over hate.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Once I make up my mind, I’m full of indecision.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
So little time, so little to do.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
- Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children.
- Sam Levenson (1911-1980)
It is true that nothing is certain except death and taxes. Sometimes I wish they came in that order.
- Sam Levenson (1911-1980)
Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped.
- Sam Levenson (1911-1980)
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
- Aaron Levenstein
But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.
- Claude Levi-Strauss
The fault lies not with our technologies but with our systems.
- Roger Levian
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.
- Alex Levine
Courage is walking naked through a cannibal village.
- Leonard Louis Levinson
He’s a fine friend. He stabs you in the front.
- Leonard Louis Levinson
There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory.
- Michael Levin
Always pray that your opposition be wicked. In wickedness, there is a strong strain toward rationality. Therefore, there is always the possibility, in theory, of handling the wicked by outthinking them.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Anticipated events never live up to expectations.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Any discovery is more likely to be exploited by the wicked than applied by the virtuous.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Default is more revolutionary than ideals.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Eternal boredom is the price of constant vigilance.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Good intentions always randomize behavior.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Good intentions are far more difficult to cope with than malicious behavior.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
If good intentions are combined with stupidity, it is impossible to outthink them.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
In unanimity there is cowardice and uncritical thinking.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Large numbers of things are determined, and therefore not subject to change.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Only God can make a random selection.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
That segment of the community with which one has the greatest sympathy as a liberal inevitably turns out to be one of the most narrow-minded and bigoted segments of the community.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
To have a sense of humor is to be a tragic figure.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
To know thy self is the ultimate form of aggression.
- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
There is nothing so practical as a good theory
- Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Chronicles of Narnia
Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than minority of them - never become conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ’What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended, civilizations are built up, excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top, and then it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am 50, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things- including the fear of childishness and the desire to be grown-up.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come and get you."
- Jerry Lewis
When you’re in love it’s the most glorious two and a half days of your life.
- Richard Lewis
"Give us a copper, Guv" said the beggar to the Treasury statistician, when he waylaid him in Parliament square. "I haven’t eaten for three days." "Ah," said the statistician, "And how does that compare with the same period last year?"
- Russell Lewis
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
- Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
Our American professors like their literature clear, cold, pure and very dead.
- Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
The trouble with this country is that there are too many people going about saying, "The trouble with this country is...."
- Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.
- Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
A book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won’t encounter many rivals.
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
Probably no invention came more easily to man than when he thought up heaven.
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes.
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
When a book and a head collide and there is a hollow sound, is it always from the book?
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
Oh, I don’t blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I’d be irresponsible, too.
- Lichty & Wagner
It’s currently a problem of access to gigabits through punybaud.
- J. C. R. Licklider
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
- G. Gordon Liddy
Obviously crime pays, or there’d be no crime.
- G. Gordon Liddy
Pat’s going to win in ’92. I’ll see to it. I don’t care where I have to break into.
- G. Gordon Liddy
Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.
- A. J. Liebling
If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to boot yourself in the posterior.
- A. J. Liebling
I cannot imagine what it’s like to know nearly everything about systems and have to deal, daily, with people who know nearly nothing about systems. It’s like being a cosmologist at an astrology convention
- James Lileks
Do you know about the Eleventh Commandment? It says, "Thou shalt not bore God, or he will destroy your universe."
- John Lilly
In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.
- John Lilly
I love the women’s movement...especially when I’m walking behind it.
- Rush Limbaugh
I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races--I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), First Lincoln-Douglas Debate, August 21, 1858
’Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Do not be deceived. Revolutions do not run backwards.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Neither Heaven nor Hell. It is simply Purgatory.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
The assertion that ’all men are created equal’ was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain, and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Towering genius disdains the beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
What is conservativism? Is it not the aherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
If one set aside time for a business appointment or shopping expedition, that time is inviolable. But if one says, ’I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone,’ one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. What commentary on our civilization.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.
- Doug Linder :) faust@access.digex.net
Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order.
- John Lindsay
C code. C code run. Run code run ... please!
- Barbara Ling
Don’t tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.
- James J. Ling
Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune
- Nicholas Ling
In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discoteques.
- Art Linkletter
To live by medicine is to live horribly.
- Carl Linnaeus
The radical novelty in modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.
- Walter Lippmann
Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords other men is a matter of tolerance.
- Walter Lippmann
Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.
- Jon Lithgow
Excuse me, I see some damsels in need of Undistressing.
- Mark Beirne Lively
War is just to those to whom war is necessary.
- Titus Livius
The amount of litter in the street is proportional to the local rate of unemployment.
- David Lloyd-Jones
Quote! Quote! Young man, the barbarians are hammering at the gates of our civilization, and you stand there saying ’quote’ when you mean ’quotation.’
- Prof. Charles Lloyd of Davidson College, circa 1968
The world’s as ugly as sin, And almost as delightful
- Frederick Locker-Lampson
... there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species should be equal amongst one another without subordination or subjection.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries; and though, perhaps, somethimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, keep out the enemy, truth, that would captivate or disturbe them.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
The discipline of desire is the background of character.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
Though I have said above that all men by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality. Age or virtue may give man a just precedency. Excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level ... And yet all this consists with the equality which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or dominion, one over another.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
To understand political power aright ... we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is a state of perfect freedom to order their actions ... within the bonds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
Security for Unix is like Mutitasking for MS-DOS
- Kevin Lockwood
Platonic friendship: The interval between the introduction and the first kiss.
- Sophie Irene Loeb
Bad news drives good news out of the media.
- Lee Loevinger
n + 1 trivial tasks take twice as long as n trivial tasks, for n sufficiently large.
- Ed Logg
Practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.
- Vince Lombardi
The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their field of endeavor.
- Vince Lombardi
Winning isn’t everything - but wanting to win is.
- Vince Lombardi
The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class.
- Jack London
Give what you have. To some one, it may be better than you dare to think.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It takes less time to do a thing right than explain why you did it wrong.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as a blazing meteor when it descends to earth, is only a stone.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Out of the shadow of night, the world rolls into light. It is daybreak everywhere.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone, shadows of the evening fall around us, and the world seems but a dim reflection itself- a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night; the soul withdraws itself. Then stars arise, and the night is wholly.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Trust no future howe’er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act- act in the living present! Heart within and God o’erhead!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Elevator Rules: 1) Face forward. 2) Fold hands in front. 3) Do not make eye contact. 4) Watch the numbers. 5) Don’t talk to anyone you don’t know. 6) Stop talking with anyone you do know when anyone you don’t know enters the elevator. 7) Avoid brushing bodies.
- Psychologist Layne Longfellow
Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle.
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)
I have a simple philosophy. Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)
If you can’t say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)
If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)
Someday Louisiana is going to get good government. And they ain’t gunna like it.
- Earl K. Long
Part of being sane, is being a little bit crazy.
- Janet Long
Tax reform means "Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree."
- Russell Long
See I am just a frustrated artist. The sex urge feeds into the art urge which feeds into the computing urge. So I have a need to program a ray tracer to fulfill the previous two levels of abstration.
Couldn’t you just masturbate?
- Nathan Loofbourrow and Rick Romero
C code and bboards are my only foods; I forsake all others, except for leaves from the Bodhi tree and water sipped from the bladder of a goat.
- Nathan Loofbourrow
The NeXT machines don’t understand my needs as a man.
- Nathan Loofbourrow
Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.
- Konrad Lorenz
Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.
- Sophia Loren
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the relevation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
- H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
...all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and (there is) no cause to value one above the other.
- H. P. Lovecraft
You have dreamed too well, O wise archdreamer, for you have drawn dream’s gods away from the world of all men’s vision to that which is wholly yours,...
- H. P. Lovecraft
As long as I am an American citizen and American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish whatever I please on any subject.
- Elija Lovejoy (1802-1837)
I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.
- Richard Lovelace
Electrician’s breakfast: ohmlettes
- Raymond D. Love
Interrogator’s lunch- grilled cheese
- Raymond D. Love
Policeman’s barbecue: steak-out.
- Raymond D. Love
Normalize ’er? But I just derived ’er!
- Dan Lovinger, after too much of a Math Methods test
Great! Just what I want in my extension language: a GARBAGE COLLECTOR! ’Assume the position!’ ’Thank you sir, may I have another?’
- Dan Lovinger, on Scheme
Don’t take VICE too seriously; It throws in random bits.
- Dan Lovinger
Some people have compared the security holes in this system to a hole the size that a 747 could fly through. By now, I would imagine it’s up in the range of Star Destroyer class.
- Dan Lovinger
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
- James Russell Lowell
A promiscuous person is someone who is getting more sex than you are.
- Victor Lownes
Just when you get really good at something, you don’t need to do it anymore.
- William P. Lowrey
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.
- Sir John Lubbock
What we see depends on mainly what we look for.
- Sir John Lubbock
I don’t have a warm personal enemy left. They’ve all died off. I miss them terribly because they helped define me.
- Clare Boothe Luce
No good deed goes unpunished.
- Clare Boothe Luce
The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces surrounded by teeth.
- Charles Luckman
In the future, you’re going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You’ll throw them out because your house will be littered with them.
- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE Preisdent
Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I saw at the airport ... Now I’m remembering, those giant piles of computer magazines right next to People and Time in the airport store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul when How to Avoid Probate was published? Are they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won’t be long before there are stacks of the Transactions on Information Theory at the A*P checkout counters. Who’s going to be impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?
- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President
The wailing of the newborn infant is mingled with the dirge for the dead.
- Lucretius
One reason why George Washington Is held in such veneration He never blamed his problems On the former Administration.
- George O. Ludcke
At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer.
- Marshall Lumsden
All the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, if they are built at all, are dogs!
- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac"
It’s not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you’re off the ground.
- Daniel B. Luten
When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for every week you’re away and get nothing done, there’s another when your boss is away and you get twice as much done.
- Daniel B. Luten
The more right one is, the more careful he should be to express his opinion tactfully. The other fellow never likes to be proved wrong.
- John Luther
Reason: the Devil’s harlot.
- Martin Luther
War is one of the greatest plagues that can afflict humanity: it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge, in fact, is preferable to it. Famine and pestilence become as nothing in comparison to it.
- Martin Luther
The tongue is the ambassador of the heart.
- Lyly
Cynicism is the intellectual cripple’s substitute for intelligence.
- Russell Lynes
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
- Russell Lynes
Wisdom and knowledge decrease in inverse proportion to age.
- William J. Lynott
They that have I’s shall be blind until their death.
- Lyse
For the memory of love is sweet, Though the love itself were in vain And what I have lost of pleasure, Assuage what I find of pain.
- Lyster
The traditional flaming Christmas pudding for example dates back to the 17th century, when a form of stiff porridge was made containing plums, preserved quinces, lemon peel, ox blood and grated pig livers. All bound together with goose fat. No wonder they set fire to it.
- Humphrey Lyttelton, ISIHAC
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