There’s not so much danger in a known foe and a suspected friend.
- Nabb
Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.
- Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
- Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
Nothing fails like success.
- Gerald Nachman
The speed of exit of a civil servant is directly proportional to the quality of his service.
- Ralph Nader
An old Jewish man reads about Einstein’s theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. "Well, zayda, it’s sort of like this. Einstein says that if you’re having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like an hour. But if you’re sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an hour seems like a minute." The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?"
- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy’s Guide to Yiddish"
Chicken Soup: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can’t cure is neurotic dependence on one’s mother.
- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy’s Guide to Yiddish"
Half-done: This is the best way to eat a kosher dill - when it’s still crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the the difference between life and death. You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the man, Let me have a nice half-done. Worth the trouble, wasn’t it?
- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy’s Guide to Yiddish"
Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and Esther and hustle them off to prison. They can’t prove who they are because they’ve left their passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they’re tortured day and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation movement.. Finally they’re hauled in front of a military court, charged with espionage, and sentenced to death. The next morning they’re lined up in front of the wall where they’ll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them if they have any lasts requests. Esther wants to know if she can call her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he’s sorry, that’s not possible, and turns to Murray. This is crazy! Murray shouts. We’re not spies! And he spits in the sergeants face. Murray! Esther cries. Please! Don’t make trouble.
- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy’s Guide to Yiddish"
One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: Why did God create goyim? The generally accepted answer is somebody has to buy retail.
- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy’s Guide to Yiddish"
Shamus: A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the temple, and makes sure everything is in working order. A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog functionaries, and there’s a joke about that: A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the middle of a service, Oh, Lord, I am nobody! The cantor, not to be bested, also cries out, Oh, Lord, I am nobody! The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, Oh, Lord, I am nobody! The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, Look who thinks he’s nobody!
- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy’s Guide to Yiddish"
There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that someone isn’t Jewish. For example, you’ll never meet a Jew named Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is this? Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think *you* can find one? Get serious. You don’t even understand why it’s forbidden to eat crab - fresh cold crab with mayonnaise - or lobster - soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don’t even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance.
- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy’s Guide to Yiddish"
It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army’s downfall.
- Napoleon Bonaparte, "Military Maxims and Thought"
A army’s effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience and morale, and morale is worth more than all the other factors combined.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
If you wish to be a sucess in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
The best way to keep one’s word, is not to give it.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
- Napoleon Bonaparte
Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Certainly there are things in life that money can’t buy, but it’s very funny - did you ever try buying them without money?
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Children aren’t happy without something to ignore, And that’s what parents were created for.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
He without benefit of scruples
His fun and money soon quadruples.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall I’ll never see a tree at all.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Love is a word that is constantly heard, Hate is a word that is not. Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. Love, I have read, is hot. But hate is the verb that to me is superb, And Love but a drug on the mart. Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But Hating, my boy, is an Art.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they don’t want it.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Progress might have been all right once but it has gone on too long.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
The Pig, if I am not mistaken,
Gives us ham and pork and Bacon.
Let others think his heart is big,
I think it stupid of the Pig.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher,
Were each of them once a kiddie.
A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature.
Do I want one? God Forbiddie!
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
The trouble with a kitten is that When it grows up, it’s always a cat.
- Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear- cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them [which] we are missing.
- Gamel Abdel Nasser
He writes his plays for the ages- the ages between five and twelve.
- George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
I drink to make other people interesting.
- George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
I only drink to make other people seem interesting.
- George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
Love demands infinitely less than friendship.
- George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
Marriage is based on the theory that when man discovers a brand of beer exactly to his taste he should at once throw up his job and go work in the brewery.
- George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
The bigger the real-life problems, the greater the tendency for the discipline to retreat into a reassuring fantasy-land of abstract theory and technical manipulation.
- Tom Naylor
There’s certainly a growing atmosphere of academic totalitarianism. It shows up in things like the attacks on the legitimacy of the more eclectic and interdisciplinary fields, or in the increasing constraints on student choice.
- Tom Naylor
Personally, should I ever form a globe spanning conglomerate, I intend to do it fairly and without malice or dirty politics. I hope you fellows don’t make that too difficult a task; I would have to have you all killed.
- David Neal (abbadon@nuchat.uucp)
The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace.
- Holly Near
Every woman needs one man in her life who is strong and responsible. Given this security, she can proceed to do what she really wants to do-- fall in love with men who are weak and irresponsible.
- Richard J. Needham
I used to look down on the world for being corrupt, but now I adore it for the utter magnificence of that corruption.
- Richard J. Needham
Lovely girls are terribly insecure. They are convinced that their legs are too thick, and their bottoms are too big, and their bosoms are too small. They are conviced that their nose is the wrong shape, that their ears stick out, and that their eyes are too close together. They need a man who will tell them they are exactly right as they are. They do not believe him, but they need to hear it said.
- Richard J. Needham
Writers, composers, entertainers and such know an awful truth: it is easier to please a million people you don’t know than to please one person you do know.
- Richard J. Needham
Action, to be effective, must be directed to clearly conceived ends.
- Jawaharial Nehru
Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.
- Jawaharial Nehru
The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.
- Jawaharial Nehru
The forces of a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
- Jawaharial Nehru
This is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation’s [IBM’s] Galaxy-wide success is founded...their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.
- T. H. Nelson, Computer Lib., 1988, London: Penguin.
I am a design chauvinist. I believe that good design is magical and not to be lightly tinkered with. The difference between a great design and a lousy one is in the meshing of the thousand details that either fit or don’t, and the spirit of the passionate intellect that has tied them together, or tried. That’s why programming-- or buying software-- on the basis of lists of features" is a doomed and misguided effort. The features can be thrown together, as in a garbage can, or carefully laid together and interwoven in elegant unification, as in APL, or the Forth language, or the game of chess.
- Ted Nelson
Where would a shellfish sue for damages? In a small clams court.
- Oliver M. Neshamkin
Secret sources are more credible.
- Ron Nessen
Probabilities are not very interesting when you are dead.
- Peter G. Neumann
In order to discover anything you must be looking for something.
- Harvey Neville
The bitter part of discretion is valor.
- Henry W. Nevinson
If John Madden steps outside on February 2, looks down, and doesn’t see his feet, we’ll have 6 more weeks of Pro football.
- Chuck Newcombe
DEC didn’t know what C was when they wrote their compiler, so it implements a language closely resembling, but not identical to, K&R C, or perhaps ANSI C, or something like that.
- Joseph M. Newcomer
I don’t mind occasionally having to reinvent a wheel; I don’t even mind using someone’s reinvented wheel occassionally. But it helps a lot if it is symmetric, contains no fewer than ten sides, and has the axle centered. I do tire of trapezoidal wheels with offset axles
- Joseph M. Newcomer
The problem with being the company wizard is that when things like this happen there is only one person who could have pulled it off.
- Joseph M. Newcomer
Theories are more like graduate students - once admitted you try hard to avoid flunking them out, it being much better for them and for the world if they can become long term contributors to society
- Allen Newell
You know, I’ve never seen snow before.
- Dale Newfield, just before making his first snowman (the proper way)
Please feed the ’Official UCC Spectator’. Do not allow this person to use network facilities. (Position assigned, but not recommended, by Academic Computing)
- Button worn by Chris Newman
Abstractions are after all made my men, not by other abstractions.
- James R. Newman, in "The World of Mathematics"
It is strange that we know so little about the properties of numbers. They are our handiwork, yet they baffle us; we can fathom only a few of their intricacies. Having defined their attributes and prescribed their behaviour, we are hard pressed to perceive the implications of our formulas.
- James R. Newman
It is unnecessary to understand electromagnetic theory before wiring a lamp or to study physics in order to repair a pump. We count on our fingers and give no heed to the proliferating implications of the act.
- James R. Newman
Mathematics has its paradoxes, astronomy its uncertainties (about what is being measured), physics having suffered certain metaphysical relapses can survive only by swallowing entire jugs of wholly contradictory measurements. As for psychology, its most brilliant and its most scandalous success has been in a realm of theory in which measurement is as welcome as Macduff at Dunsinane.
- James R. Newman
There are. . . scientific works-- star catalogues, for example-- which are not art; but the theoretical structures of Gauss, Einstein, or Maxwell are original, individual, "very personal" responses and expressions of exactly the same kind as the creative works of Beethoven or Dostoievski.
- James R. Newman
Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.
- John Henry Newman
Life at the top is financially rewarding, spiritually draining, physically exhausting, and short.
- Peter C. Newman
When a man blames others for his failures, it’s a good idea to credit others with his successes.
- Howard W. Newton
Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These and other suchlike considerations, always have, and always will prevail with mankind, to believe that there is a Being who made all things, who has all things in his power, and who is therefore to be feared.
- Isaac Newton
I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.
- Isaac Newton
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
- Isaac Newton
The censors say they’re protecting the family unit in America, when the reality is, if you suck a tit, you’re an X, but if you cut it off with a sword, you’re a PG.
- Jack Nicholson, Playboy Interview - April 1972
If after you’ve tried everything else, the fucking pink elephant is still there, try looking at the elephant from a different point of view. Like, down the barrel of a pink fucking elephant gun.
- Jack Nicholson
Marriage: a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose.
- Beverly Nichols
Standards are like motherhood: They should not come too soon, and there should be an identifiable father.
- Capt John Nichols, USN, 1968
The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them.
- Kimon Nicolaides
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
- James D. Nicoll
Look, I tried the cat experiment. On the third trial, the cat was dead. On each of the subsequent 413 trials, it remained dead. Am I doing something wrong?
- James Nicoll, as quoted from someone’s .sig on alt.atheism
Very little is known about the War of 1812 because the Americans lost it.
- Eric Nicol
Who are you and how did you get in here?
I’m a locksmith. And, I’m a locksmith.
- Leslie Nielsen as Lieutenant Frank Drebins, "Police Squad! (in color)"
When Hitler attacked the Jews, I was not a Jew, therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church--and there was nobody left to be concerned.
- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 14 October 1968, Congressional Record p. 31636
The effort expended by the bureaucracy in defending any error is in direct proportion to the size of the error.
- John Nies
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
There is not enough religion in the world to destroy the world’s religions.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Only sick music makes money today.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) in 1888
That which does not kill me, can only make me stronger
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), "Also Spraech Zarathustra"
Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), "Thus Spake Zarathustra
... the Earth hath skin, and the skin hath diseases. One of these... is called man.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Deep in the nature of all these noble races there lurks unmistakably the beast of prey, the blond beast, lustfully roving in search of booty and victory.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
He divines remedies against injuries; he knows how to turn serious accidents to his own advantage; whatever does not kill him makes him stronger.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
He who despises himself esteems himself as a self-despiser.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
I would believe only in a god who could dance.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
If a woman seeks education it is probably because her sexaul apparatus is malfunctioning.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
If you go to see the woman, do not forget the whip.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, people, and times, it is the rule.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
It is not enough to prove something, one also has to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learn how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly!"
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Man is more ape than many of the apes.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Much that is dreadful and inhuman in history, much that one hardly likes to believe, is mitigated by the reflection that the one who commands and the one who carries out are different people. The former does not behold the sight and does not experience the strong impression on the imagination. The latter obeys a superior and therefore feels no responsibility for his acts.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
The masses seem to me worthy of notice in only three respects: first as blurred copies of great men, produced on bad paper with worn plates, further as a resistance to the great, and finally as the tools of the great; beyond that, may the devil and statistics take them
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
The overman...Who has organized the chaos of his passions, givne style to his character, and become creative. Aware of life’s terrors, he affirms life without resentment.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
There are no eternal facts as there are no absolute truths.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
There are no facts, only interpretations.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Whis is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Without music, life would be a mistake.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Woman was God’s second mistake.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Please, Captain. Not in front of the Klingons.
- Leonard Nimoy as Spock in Star Trek V, The Final Frontier
Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
- Anais Nin
That’s the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, "Oath of Fealty"
It’s a nitwit idea. Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. The rest of the time you go by the Book, which is mostly a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.
- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, "The Mote in God’s Eye"
There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.
- Niven’s Law # 16
I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any other minority viewpoint -- no matter how distasteful to the majority.
- Richard M. Nixon
I am not a crook.
- Richard M. Nixon
I think Congress has spent enough time on ethics. I think its time they moved on to something else.
- Richard M. Nixon
I would have made a good Pope.
- Richard M. Nixon
If I could find a way to get [Saddam Hussein] out of there, even putting a contract out on him, if the CIA still did that sort of a thing, assuming it ever did, I would be for it.
- Richard M. Nixon
If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?
- Richard M. Nixon
It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
- Richard M. Nixon
No president in history has been more vilified or was more vilivied during the time he was President than Lincoln. Those who knew him, his secretaries, have written that he was deeply hurt by what was said about him and drawn about him, but on the other hand, Lincoln had the great strength of character never to display it, always able to stand tall and strong and firm no matter how harsh or unfair the criticism might be. These elements of greatness, of course, inspire us all today.
- Richard M. Nixon
Nothing would please the Kremlin more than to have the people of this country choose a second rate president.
- Richard M. Nixon
Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.
- Richard M. Nixon
Success is not a harbor but a voyage with its own perils to the spirit. The game of life is to come up a winner, to be a success, or to achieve what we set out to do. Yet there is always the danger of failing as a human being. The lesson that most of us on this voyage never learn, but can never quite forget, is that to win is sometimes to lose.
- Richard M. Nixon
Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
- Richard M. Nixon
You can’t underestimate the power of fear.
- Tricia Nixon
If I could go through the dorms and shoot people, exam pressures would be put into perspective.
- Professor Ralph Noble
The American people aren’t interested in details.
- Lyn Nofziger
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
- Dorothy Law Nolte
In spite of the cost of living, it’s still popular.
- Kathy Norris
I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn’t have to go to that extreme.
- Oliver North
Love not! Love not! the thing you love may change, The rosy lip may cease to smile on you, The kindly beaming eye grow cold and strange, The heart still warmly beat, and not for you.
- Mrs. Norton
All men have the right to wait in line.
- Carlos Eduardo Novaes
Each person has the right to take part in the management of public affairs in his country, provided he has prior experience, a will to succeed, a college degree, influential parents, good looks, a resume, two 3X4 snapshots, and a good tax record.
- Carlos Eduardo Novaes
Each person has the right to take the subway.
- Carlos Eduardo Novaes
Do whatever your enemies don’t want you to do.
- Gary Novak
If Communism goes, I’ve still got the U.S. House of Representatives.
- Robert Novak
Character is a perfectly educated will.
- Novalis
Ambition: The dropsy’d thirst of empire, wealth or fame.
- Nugen
Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant professor; equality is when a female idiot moves ahead as fast as a male idiot.
- Ewald Nyquist
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