A component’s degree of reliability is directly proportional to it’s ease of accessibility (the harder it is to get to, the more often it breaks down).
- Johnathon Waddell
I didn’t think it could be done, though given Sun’s track record, I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve managed to produce an even worse keyboard than any that they previously had on the market.
- Steve Wadlow
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.
- Charles Wadsworth
I swear to god, if people treated their cars they way they treat their computers, half the cars on the road would be covered in bumper stickers advertising porno, and their trunks would be filled with rotting garbage.
- Christian Wagner
I’m just waiting for the day that someone decides that "ignorant moron" is an ethnic group, and thus cannot be discriminated against.
- Christian Wagner
All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific.
- Jane Wagner
Justice always prevails... three times out of seven!
- Michael J. Wagner
Since the mind is specific biocomputer it needs specific instruction and directions. The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.
- Denis Waitley
Them what gets, has.
- Dexter B. Wakefield, Wakefield’s Refutation of the Iron Law of Distribution (Them what has, gets)
One man’s red tape is another man’s system.
- Dwight Waldo
A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.
- George Wald
If there are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump in the middle and start reciting Shakespeare, but to the audience, you’ll just be the thirteenth clown.
- Adam Walinsky
The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants.
- Adam Walinsky
I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the success of my talk depend on a piece of mechanical equipment.
- Amanda Walker
The need for maintenance and support is a bug, not a feature.
- Amanda Walker
Seven days without laughter makes one weak.
- Mort Walker
Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum. Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke.
- Stanley Walker
If [in a rain forest] the traveler notices a particular species and wishes to find more like it, he must often turn his eyes in vain in every direction. Trees of varied forms, dimensions, and colors are around him, but he rarely sees any of them repeated. Time after time he goes towards a tree which looks like the one he seeks, but a closer examination proves it to be distinct.
- Alfred Russel Wallace
The L.A. courts are so backed up with trials against all the looters, they’ve opened up a 10 items or less counter!!
- Geogre Wallace
I’ve seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I’ve seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head.
- George Wallace
Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you’ve got a pretty neck.
- Eli Wallach
It won’t be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for something, after all... :-)
- Larry Wall in <10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
No, I’m not going to explain it. If you can’t figure it out, you didn’t want to know anyway... :-)
- Larry Wall in <1991Aug7.180856.2854@netlabs.com>
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. :-)
- Larry Wall in <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...]
- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
Does the same as the system call of that name. If you don’t know what it does, don’t worry about it.
- Larry Wall in the perl man page regarding chroot(2)
It is easier to port a shell than a shell script.
- Larry Wall
Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.
- Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
It is a special trick of low cunning to squeeze out knowledge from a modest man, who is eminent in any science, and then to use it as legally acquired, and pass the source in total silence.
- Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
Men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.
- Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
This world is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
- Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do.
- Joe Walsh
If you’re already in a hole, there’s no use to continue digging.
- Roy W. Walters
Reason is the test of ridicule- not ridicule the test of truth.
- Warburton
I have already given two cousins to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife’s brother.
- Artemus Ward
Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness?
- Artemus Ward
Bullwinkle: You just leave that to my pal. He’s the brains of the outfit. General: What does that make YOU? Bullwinkle: What else? An executive...
- Jay Ward
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward
Everybody winds up kissing the wrong person good night.
- Andy Warhol
I am a deeply superficial person.
- Andy Warhol
Sex is the biggest nothing of all time.
- Andy Warhol
The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.
- Andy Warhol
They say that time changes things, but actually you have to change them yourself.
- Andy Warhol
Two people kissing always look like fish.
- Andy Warhol
What a man needs in gardening is a cast iron back, with a hinge in it.
- Charles Dudley Warner
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
It’s our fault. We should have given him better parts.
- Jack Warner on hearing that Ronald Reagan had been elected governor of California
Screenwriters? Schmucks with Underwoods.
- Jack Warner
The viability of standards is inversely proportional to the number of people on the committee.
- James Warner
The likelihood of anything happening is in direct proportion to the amount of trouble it will cause if it does happen.
- Sam W. Warren
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
- Booker T. Washington
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
- Brooker T. Washington
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master.
- George Washington
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.
- George Washington
The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference -- they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good
- George Washington
Now let me explain why this makes intuitive sense.
- Prof. Larry Wasserman
In a cruel and evil world, being cynical can allow you to get some entertainment out of it.
- Daniel Waters, screenwriter of HEATHERS
One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
- J. D. Watson, "The Double Helix"
One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
- James Watson
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn’t.
- Lyall Watson
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
- Scott Watson
I think there’s a world market for about five computers.
- Thomas J Watson, Chairman of the Board, IBM.
Hope is like the cork to the net, which keeps the soul from sinking in despair; and fear is like the lead to the net, which keeps it from floating in presumption.
- Watson
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
- Bill Watterson, cartoonist
Had I imagined ’Calvin and Hobbes’ would last this long, I would have paced myself. The strip requires a great deal of research and I need to do more interplanetary exploration and paleontology work before I can continue.
- Bill Watterson
I am but a gatherer, and a disposer of other men’s stuff.
- Watton
I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.
- Alan Watts
As a man may be eating all day, and for want of digestion is never nourished, so these endless readers may cram themselves in vain with intellectual food.
- Dr. I. Watts
It was a saying of the ancients, "Truth lies in a well;" and to carry on this metaphor, we may justly say that logic does supply us with steps, whereby we may go down to reach the water.
- Dr. I. Watts
Though reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation must form our judgment.
- Dr. I. Watts
We don’t have to protect the environment- the Second Coming is at hand.
- James Watt
All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.
- Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
I do not believe the expenditure of $2.50 for a book entitles the purchaser to the personal friendship of the author.
- Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
It is a curious thing ... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
- Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.
- Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
- Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.
- Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?
- Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
Burnt Sienna. That’s the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas.
- Ken Weaver
Development of hydro power in the desert of north Africa awaits only the introduction of water...
- Lynn E. Weaver, "Peaceful uses of Nuclear Explosives"
When several reporters share a cab on assignment, the reporter in the front seat pays for all.
- Warren Weaver
Meanwhile, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It must be confessed- it will be confessed- there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.
- Daniel Webster
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my heart and my hand to this vote.
- Daniel Webster
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.
- Daniel Webster
The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
- Daniel Webster
In our impatience to test our ideological wings, too many students are trying to fly before they even know what feathers are; too many students use half-baked versions of some cultural theory they overheard in the cafeteria line-up as a valid justification for their actions. Like Newman’s ideal student, we too learn as we go along-- only now students use an idea like a weapon, to intimidate and destroy, instead of as one tool in a constructive tool box. How often have students, speaking in class, either justified themselves or cudgelled some rival into silence and submission by evoking a great name or theory?
- Derek Webster
Wherever public spirit prevails, liberty is secure.
- Noah Webster
Heaven’s gates ate not so highly arch’d as princes’ palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees.
- Webster
Kiss the tear from her lip, you’ll find the rose the sweeter for the dew.
- Webster
The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object, this is eloquence, or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence- it is action noble, sublime, godlike action.
- Webster
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.
- A. H. Weiler
Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors who when their turn comes, will manufacture professors.
- Simone Weil
All C Programs do the same thing: look at a character and do nothing with it.
- Peter Weinberger
It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.
- Darin Weinberg
But your program doesn’t work. If the program doesn’t have to work, I can write one that takes one millisecond per card -- and that’s faster than our card reader.
- Gerald Weinberg, "The Psychology of Computer Programming", 1971
We have come through a strange cycle in programming, starting with the creation of programming itself as a human activity. Executives with the tiniest smattering of knowledge assume that anyone can write a program, and only now are programmers beginning to win their battle for recognition as true professionals. Not just anyone, with any background, or any training, can do a fine job of programming. Programmers know this, but then why is it that they think that anyone picked off the street can do documentation? One has only to spend an hour looking at papers written by graduate students to realize the extent to which the ability to communicate is not universally held. And so, when we speak about computer program documentation, we are not speaking about the psychology of computer programming at all -- except insofar as programmers have the illusion that anyone can do a good job of documentation, provided he is not smart enough to be a programmer.
- Gerald Weinberg, "The Psychology of Computer Programming
The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its predictive power.
- Gerald Weinberg, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
- Gerald Weinberg
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
- Steven Weinberg
A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
- Max Weinreich (1894-1969)
In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, ’Let there be Light.’ And there was still nothing. But, you could see it.
- Dave Weinstein (dweinste@isis.cs.du.edu)
The chalk marks are transient, the formulas eternal.
- S. Weinstein
Before emphasizing what I believe, perhaps I should point out what I do not believe, or what I no longer believe: I no longer believe in the magic of the spoken word. It signifies not order but disorder. It does not eliminate chaos, it only conceals it. It no longer carries men’s hopes but distorts them. It has ceased to be a vehicle, only to become an obstacle. It does not signify sharing but compromise.
- Elie Weisel, From the Kingdom of Memory
As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.
- Weisert
If you’re confident after you’ve just finished an exam, it’s because you don’t know enough to know better.
- Jay Weisman
Never be fatalistic about the inevitability of nuclear war or the destruction of our environment. There are _ways_ to avoid the holocaust and to make the world a cleaner place. We must never cease to search for them.
- Victor F. Weisskopf
Astrology Law: It’s always the wrong time of the month.
- Rozanne Weissman
Doctors, dentists, and lawyers are only on time for appointments when you’re not.
- Rozanne Weissman
Food that tastes the best has the highest number of calories.
- Rozanne Weissman
In matters of dispute, the bank’s balance is always smaller than yours.
- Rozanne Weissman
Those who expect the biggest tips provide the worst service.
- Rozanne Weissman
Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least.
- Rozanne Weissman
Maybe we’re just lucky to live in a universe composed by a divine Bach. Perhaps next door, the inhabitants of a John Cage universe muddle along in chaos...
- Michael Weiss, in sci.physics
Even overweight cats instinctively know the cardinal rule: when fat, arrange yourself in slim poses
- John Weitz
Man is not a machine... Although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in the way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the furture, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns.
- Joseph Weizenbaum
I passionately hate the idea of being with it. I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
- Orson Welles, 1966
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
- Orson Welles
My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.
- Orson Welles
So gather the kids, a dog... Grandma... and lock them in another room.
- Orson Welles
There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women.
- Orson Welles
Actions lie louder than words.
- Carolyn Wells
A man may be a very bad musician, and may yet be passionately in love with music.
- H. G. Wells (1885-1946)
Advertising is legalized lying.
- H. G. Wells (1885-1946)
Cynicism is humor in ill-health.
- H. G. Wells (1885-1946)
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
- H. G. Wells (1885-1946)
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
- H. G. Wells (1885-1946)
Non-violence is the policy of the vegetable kingdom
- H. G. Wells (1885-1946)
Worlds may freeze and suns may perish, but there stirs something within us now that can never die again.
- H. G. Wells (1885-1946)
You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company.
- J. Wellington Wells
Some rainy winter Sundays when there’s a little boredom, you should always carry a gun. Not to shoot yourself, but to know exactly that you’re always making a choice.
- Lina Wertmuller
Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men.
- Brooke Foss Westcott
If I’ve done anything I’m sorry for, I’m willing to be forgiven.
- Edward N. Westcott
A coupla months in the laboratory can save a coupla hours in the library.
- Westheimer’s Discovery
I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.
- Mae West (1893-1980)
I never loved another person the way I loved myself.
- Mae West (1893-1980)
Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution, yet.
- Mae West (1893-1980)
Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL.
- Mae West (1893-1980)
When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one I’ve never tried before.
- Mae West (1893-1980)
Women with pasts interest men... they hope history will repeat itself.
- Mae West (1893-1980)
You’re never too old to become younger.
- Mae West (1893-1980)
Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
- Rebecca West
Journalism is the ability to meet the challenge of filling space.
- Rebecca West
Man is a hating rather than a loving animal.
- Rebecca West
The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.
- Rebecca West
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
- Walt West
My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.
- Hermann Weyl
You can not apply mathematics as long as words still becloud reality.
- Hermann Weyl
[T]here are people who want a different political order, who are not necessarily Marxists. Symbolized by the women’s liberation movement, they believe that the future for their political power lies in the resturcturing of the traditional family, and particularly in the downgrading of the male or father role in the traditional family.
- Paul Weyrich
Life is either always a tight-rope or a featherbed. Give me a tight-rope.
- Edith Wharton
Custom will often blind one to the good as well as to the evil effects of any long established system.
- Bishop Richard Whately
Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
- Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin
The best security against revolution is in constant correction of abuses and the introduction of needed improvements. It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.
- Richard Whately
There are two ways of spreading light, to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.
- Edith Wharton
If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day.
- John A. Wheeler
No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.
- John A. Wheeler
Now is the time for everyone who believes in the rule of reason to speak up against pathological science and its purveyors.
- John A. Wheeler
Surely where there’s smoke there’s fire? No, where there’s so much smoke there’s smoke.
- John A. Wheeler
The road ahead can hardly help being strewn with many a mistake. The main point is to get those mistakes made and recognized as fast as possible!
- John A. Wheeler
To hate is to study, to study is to understand, to understand is to appreciate, to appreciate is to love. So maybe I’ll end up loving your theory.
- John A. Wheeler
Two and two continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.
- James McNeill Whistler
"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. . . But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming-- and a little mad.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat: but in the evolution of real knowledge, it marks the first step in progress toward victory.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song; and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Seek simplicity, and distrust it.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while. Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth-while.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
There is no choice before us. Either we must succeed in providing the rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization will sink into a mere welter of minor excitements. We must provide a Great Age or see the collapse of the upward striving of the human race.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Through and through the world is infested with quantity. To talk sense is to talk quantities, It is no use saying the nation is large- how large? It is no use s aying that radium is scarce- how scarce? You can not evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool.
- Katharine Whitehorn
Spring makes everything look filthy.
- Katherine Whitehorn
I simply try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into that decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to medieval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among us- a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the whole normal evolution of society.
- Andrew D. White, author, first president of Cornell University
An intelligence service is, in fact, a stupidity service.
- E. B. White (1899-1985)
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
- E. B. White (1899-1985)
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
- E. B. White (1899-1985)
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
- E. B. White (1899-1985)
The only sense that is common in the long run, is the sense of change- and we all instinctively avoid it.
- E. B. White (1899-1985)
Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.
- E. B. White (1899-1985)
We find no evidence that Congress intended to modify the nostrum to read, ’crime does not pay, except for attorney’s fees.’
- Justice Byron R. White
It’s not Camelot, but it’s not Cleveland, either.
- Kevin White, mayor of Boston
[W]e shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man.
- Lynn White, Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis", Science V. 155 No. 3767 (10 March 1967), pp. 1203-1207.
It’s not an optical illusion, it just looks like one.
- Phil White
Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is not sure of you.
- Stewart E. White
Any appeasement of tyranny is treason to this republic and to the democratic ideal.
- William Allen White
Liberty is the one thing you can’t have unless you give it to others.
- William Allen White
If anything is sacred the human body is sacred.
- Walt Whitman, "I Sing The Body Electric"
O to be self-balanced for contingencies! O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs as trees and animals do!
- Walt Whitman
Then I realized that I had spelled ’-’ wrong.
- John Whitmore learns APL
If I traveled to the end of the rainbow As Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me The pot’s at the other end.
- Bert Whitney
If I traveled to the end of the rainbow As Dame Fortune did intend,
Murphy would be there to tell me The pot’s at the other end.
- Bert Whitney
It’s a problem with grad students. They fall asleep every couple of days
- "Red" Whittaker, Dec 1992
God blesses still the generous thought And still the fitting word He speeds, And truth, at His requiring taught, He quickens into deeds.
- Whittier
Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. . . luckily, it’s not difficult.
- Charlotte Whitton
History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.
- Lord John Whorfin
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.
- Benjamin Whorf
Government expands to absorb revenue - and then some.
- Tom Wicker
Decide what you want to be- pay the price and be what you want to be.
- John A. Widstoe
So far as modern science is concerned, we have to abandon completely the idea that by going into the realm of the small we shall reach the ultimate foundations of the universe. I believe we can abandon this idea without any regret. The universe is infinite in all directions, not only above us in the large but also below us in the small.
- Emil Wiechert
What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.
- Norbert Wiener
War is the biggest ego trip of all time.
- Molly Wiest
A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time.
- Alfred E. Wiggam
Physics is becoming so unbelievably complex that it is taking longer and longer to train a physicist. It is taking so long, in fact, to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them.
- Eugene Wigner
Government expands to absorb all available revenue and then some.
- Wiker
One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
’Tis the set of sails and not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Winds of Fate"
France is the only country where the money falls apart and you can’t tear the toilet paper.
- Billy Wilder
Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she’s a householder.
- Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)
Wherever you get near the human race, there’s just layers and layers of nonsense.
- Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), as he sipped champagne on his deathbed
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Action: the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Bore: a man who is never unintentionally rude.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Conscience and cowardice are really the same thing. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Divorces are made in heaven.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Everyone who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
He hadn’t a single redeeming vice.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I am not young enough to know everything.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I don’t like principles. I prefer prejudices.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I have nothing to declare except my own genius.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, overestimated His ability.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
If England treats her criminals the way she has treated me, she doesn’t deserve to have any.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is a very sad thing nowadays there is so little useless information.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is only by not paying one’s bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Journalism justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarist.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Men become old, but they never become good.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Missionaries are going to reform the world whether it wants to or not.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
My great mistake, the fault for which I can’t forgive myself, is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Only the shallow know themselves.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Philanthropy is the refuge of rich people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet’s dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is unread.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The only charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The only possible form of exercise is to talk, not to walk.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it... I can resist everything but temptation.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
To be willing to die for an ideal is to set a rather high price on conjecture.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Why was I born with such contemporaries?
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
You can pick out actors by the glazed look that comes into their eyes when the conversation wanders away from themselves.
- Michael Wilding
As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn’t as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.
- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949
In its broadest ecological context, economic development is the development of more intensive ways of exploiting the natural environment.
- Richard Wilkinson
Anyone can hate. it costs to love.
- John Williamson
I like the word ’indolence’. It makes my laziness seem classy.
- Bern Williams
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
- H. H. Williams
If a system doesn’t have to be reliable, it can do anything else.
- H. H. Williams
You may be imperious, but the effect is always spoiled when you apologize.
- Karen Williams
Ah yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.
- Robin Williams
Spring is nature’s way of saying, ’Let’s party!’
- Robin Williams
We Americans, we’re a simple people... but piss us off, and we’ll bomb your cities.
- Robin Williams
God requireth not a uniformity of religion.
- Roger Williams
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
- Tennessee Williams
Success and failure are equally disastrous.
- Tennessee Williams
The mistake you make is in trying to figure it out.
- Tennessee Williams
We have to distrust each other. It’s our only defense against betrayal.
- Tennessee Williams
His eye was blue and calm, as is the sky in the serenest noon.
- Willis
What is ambition? ’Tis a glorious cheat. Angels of light walk not so dazzlingly the sapphire walls of heaven.
- Willis
Only the winners decide what were war crimes.
- Garry Wills
...in the lexicon of the political class, the word "sacri- fice" means that the citizens are supposed to mail even more of their income to Washington so that the political class will not have to sacrifice the pleasure of spending it.
- George F. Will - Newsweek, 2/22/93
Football combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
- George F. Will
If you want to understand your government, don’t begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys precious little of the flavor of today’s statecraft.) Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word "National."
- George F. Will
The Berlin Wall is the defining achievement of socialism.
- George F. Will
We are given children to test us and make us more spiritual.
- George F. Will
Custom does often reason overrule and only serves for reason to the fool.
- John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
The mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.
- Colin Wilson
Feminists say 60 percent of the country’s wealth is in the hands of women. They’re letting men hold the other 40 percent because their handbags are full.
- Earl Wilson
He’s an honest man -- you can shoot craps with him over the telephone.
- Earl Wilson
If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
- Earl Wilson
Women’s liberation will not be achieved until a woman can become paunchy and bald and still think that she’s attractive to the opposite sex.
- Earl Wilson
His style has the desperate jauntiness of a orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship.
- Edmund Wilson
The cruelest thing that has happened to Lincoln since he was shot by Booth was to fall into the hands of Sandburg.
- Edmund Wilson
In a purely technical sense, each species of higher organism is richer in information than a Caravaggio painting, Bach fugue, or any other great work of art.
- Edward O. Wilson
You can’t expect to hit the jackpot if you don’t put a few nickels in the machine.
- Flip Wilson
All policy interventions in social problems produce the intended effect, if the research is carried out by those implementing the policy or their friends.
- James Q. Wilson
No policy intervention in social problems produces the intended effect- if the research is carried out by independent third parties, especially those skeptical of the policy.
- James Q. Wilson
Belief is the death of intelligence.
- Robert Anton Wilson
It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.
- Robert Anton Wilson
Only the madman is absolutely sure.
- Robert Anton Wilson
Most programmers are pretty good at estimating their programming time, but don’t seem to realize that they may only get half of their day to program in.
- Rolf Wilson
No one who has read official documents needs to be told how easy it is to conceal the essential truth under the apparently candid and all- disclosing phrases of a voluminous and particularizing report....
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), "Congressional Government", p. 109
A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
I used to be a lawyer, but now I am a reformed character.
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
The history of liberty is the history of resistance. It is a history of the limitation of governmental power.
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
The public is not made up of people who get their names in the papers.
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
We are citizens of the world: and the tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.
- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
I only drink fortified wines during bad weather. Snowstorm, hurricane, tornado--I’m not particular, as long as it’s bad. After all, any storm for a Port.
- Paul S. Winalski
The wine seems to be very closed-in and seems to have entered a dumb stage. Sort of a Marcel Meursault.
- Paul S. Winalski
Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation.
- Walter Winchell (1897-1972)
It’s a sure sign of summer if the chair gets up when you do.
- Walter Winchell (1897-1972)
Nothing recedes like success.
- Walter Winchell (1897-1972)
A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.
- Michael Winner, British film director
Probable-Possible, my black hen, She lays eggs in the Relative When. She doesn’t lay eggs in the Positive Now Because she’s unable to postulate how.
- Frederick Winsor
If God had really intended men to fly, He’d have made it easier to get to the airport.
- George Winters
You have perhaps heard the story of the four students-- British, French, American, Canadian-- who were asked to write an essay on elephants. The British student entitled his essay "Elephants and the Empire." The French student called his "Love and the Elephant." The title of the American student’s essay was "Bigger and Better Elephants," and the Canadian student called his "Elephants: A Federal or Provincial Responsibility?"
- Robert H. Winters
I wonder how so insupportable a thing as a bookseller was ever permitted to grow up in the Commonwealth. Many of our modern booksellers are but needless excrements, or rather vermin.
- George Wither (1588-1667)
We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass no matter how self-seeking.
- F. G. Withington
At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely," it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
The distance between the ticket counter and you plane is directly proportional to the weight of what you are carrying and inversely proportional to the time remaining before takeoff.
- Gary Witzenburg
Ideal goals grow faster than the means of attaining new goals allow.
- Mallory Wober
Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.
- P. G. Wodehouse
It was one of those parties where you cough twice before you speak, and then decide not to say it after all.
- P. G. Wodehouse
The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.
- P. G. Wodehouse
Thats why I was running the debugger, I didn’t want it to crash.
- Aaron Wohl
Sirs, adulation is a fatal thing- Rank poison for a subject, or a king.
- Dr. Wolcot
The turnpike road to people’s hearts I find Lies through their mouths, or I mistake mankind.
- Dr. Wolcot
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt; And ev’ry grin so merry, draws one out.
- Dr. Wolcott
The mind of man is vastly like a hive; His thoughts are busy ever, all alive; But here the simile will go no further; For bees are making honey, one and all; Man’s thoughts are busy in producing gall; Committing, as it were, self-murther.
- Dr. Wolcott
Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.
- Gene Wolfe
There is no limit to stupidity. Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond infinity.
- Gene Wolfe
I try to know what I need to know. I make sure to know what I want to know.
- Nero Wolfe
A cult is a religion with no political power
- Tom Wolfe
I want to know the truth, however perverted that may sound.
- Stephen Wolfram
A good place to start is where you are.
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
If you can’t beat them, have them join you.
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
In briefings to busy people, summarize at the beginning what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then summarize at the end what you have told them.
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
Jimmy Carter says the GOP Core the meeting began, or the outcome of the larger meeting will be modified later when three or four people get together.
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
Major actions are rarely decided by more than four people. If you think a larger meeting you’re attending is really "hammering out" a decision, you’re probably wrong. Either the decision was agreed to by a smaller group before the meeting began, or the outcome of the larger meeting will be modified later when three or four people get together.
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
The only important result of a meeting is agreement about next steps.
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
The tasks to do immediately are the minor ones; otherwise you’ll for get them. The major ones are often better to defer. They usually need more time for reflection. Besides, if you forget them, they’ll remind you.
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
Those who don’t study the past will repeat its errors. Those who do will find other ways to err!
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows.
- David T. Wolf
The tendency to believe that things never change, the inertia of daily existence, is a staple of living. It has always been a delusion.
- Donald A. Wollheim
As part of Academic Computing’s commitment to its Sun 3 users.....
- Walter Wong
Ah Spring, when men’s minds turn to thoughts of a laptop computer!
- Ben Woodard
Jean, are you busy at 5 o’clock? I need a girl pretty desperatly.
- Ben Woodard
The NY Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country...
- Robert J. Woodhead
I know a lot of my friends who won’t drive a car that is of a model more than two years old. A great many of us have machinery in our heads that is of a model a hundred years old.
- J. S. Woodsworth
A theory is better than its explanation.
- H. P. Woodward
Education today, more than ever before, must see clearly the dual objectives: Education for living and education for making a living.
- James Mason Wood
Scientific and humanist approaches are not competitive but supportive, and both are ultimately necessary.
- Robert C. Wood
... Illusions are the most valuable and necessary of all things, and she who can create one is among the world’s greatest benefactors.
- Virginia Woolf, "Orlando"
I am reading Henry James ... and feel myself as one entombed in a block of smooth amber.
- Virginia Woolf
To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.
- Virginia Woolf
All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening.
- Alexander Woollcott
He became mellow before he became ripe.
- Alexander Woollcott
Many of us spend half our life wishing for things we could have if we didn’t spend half our time wishing.
- Alexander Woollcott
The scenery in the play was beautiful, but the actors got in front of it.
- Alexander Woollcott
A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows.
- William Wordsworth
But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave.
- William Wordsworth
Every great or original writer in proportion as he is great or original, must himself create the taste by which he must be relished.
- William Wordsworth
Nought shall prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings.
- William Wordsworth
The best portion of a good man’s life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth
The child is father of the man.
- William Wordsworth
Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.
- William Wordsworth
What are fears but voices airy? Whispering harm where harm is not, And deluding the unwary Till the fatal bolt is shot!
- William Wordsworth
An ambassador is a man of virtue sent to lie abroad for his country; a news-writer is a man without virtue who lies at home for himself.
- Sir Henry Wotton, "Reliquae Wottonianae"
A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
Television: chewing gum for the eyes.
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
The truth is more important than the facts.
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
Curiosity killed the cat, but for awhile I was a suspect.
- Steven Wright
Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
- Steven Wright
I bought a blank tape at the stereo store, and came home and put it on my stereo. A few minutes later there’s a knock at my door. It’s a neighbor complaining. He’s a mime. (I didn’t REALLY hear him knock!)
- Steven Wright
I bought a cordless extension cord.
- Steven Wright
I bought some land that was kind of cheap. It was on someone else’s property.
- Steven Wright
I came home the other night and tried to open the door with my car keys...and the building started up. So I took it out for a drive. A cop pulled me over for speeding. He asked me where I live... Right here.
- Steven Wright
I didn’t know it then, but looking back, in hind-sight, I realize that when I was younger I could see into the future. Now I’m getting all my premonitions as flashbacks!
- Steven Wright
I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one. It wasn’t doing what I was doing. I tried to DRAW my shadow once, but I couldn’t ... my arm kept moving.
- Steven Wright
I hate to think about the past. It just brings back so many memories!
- Steven Wright
I have an existential map. It has "You are here" written all over it.
- Steven Wright
I was playing poker the other night... with Tarot cards. I got a full house and 4 people died.
- Steven Wright
I woke up and started folding my bed back into a couch and almost broke both my arms, because it’s not one of those beds!
- Steven Wright
I’m going to get a tatoo over my WHOLE BODY ... of ME, but TALLER!
- Steven Wright
I’ve really got into astronomy lately. So much so that I have installed a skylight in my ceiling. This really upsets the people that live above me.
- Steven Wright
If God dropped acid, would he see people?
- Steven Wright
My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big sattelite photo of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: Wish you were here.
- Steven Wright
People think my friend George is weird because he wears sideburns... behind his ears. I think he’s weird because he wears false teeth... with braces on them.
- Steven Wright
Sponges grow in the ocean. That kills me. Imagine how deep the ocean would be if you took them out!
- Steven Wright
When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ’Did you sleep good?’ I said ’No, I made a few mistakes.’
- Steven Wright
You can’t have everything... where would you put it?
- Steven Wright
You know how it is when you go to be the subject of a psychology experiment, and nobody else shows up, and you think maybe that’s part of the experiment? I’m like that all the time.
- Steven Wright
You know that feeling when you’re leaning back on a stool and it starts to tip over? Well, that’s how I feel all the time.
- Steven Wright
there’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.
- Steven Wright
The first sample is always the best.
- William K. Wright
A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce.
- Don Quinn
More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason -- including blind stupidity.
- W. A. Wulf
Some people can’t talk English.
- Oswald Wyler (6 witnesses! Honest!)
I know a function when I see one.
- Oswald Wyler
Student: "Can you do problem number twelve?"
Wyler: "Twelve?...NO!...That problem is on the test."
- Oswald Wyler
God must hate common people, because he made them so common.
- Philip Wylie
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