Favorite Quotes
For the modern EE, the lure of the Laplace transform is its ability to map the complicated operation of convolution into multiplication. This integral has for decades driven electrical engineering undergraduates to contemplate theology either for salvation or as an alternative career.
--Paul J. Nahin
The purpose of education...is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.
Words down got we've good pretty -- should now invent we syntax!
--Bob Thaves ("Frank & Ernest")
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.
--Robert Fulghum
Those that go searching for love
only make manifest their own lovelessness,
and the loveless never find love,
only the loving find love,
and they never have to seek for it.
--D.H. Lawrence
If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you,
Slice him up before he slays you.
Nothing makes you look a slob
Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB).
--The Roguelet's ABC
Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
--Fletcher Knebel
"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ... neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
Shamus, n. [Yiddish]:
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, (from: Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish)
People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.
--H. Jackson Browne (from: P.S. I Love You)
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust,
never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never
dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a
lot of things there are to learn."
--T.H. White, (from: The Once and Future King)
Success? Well, I don't know quite what you mean by success.
Material success? Worldly success? Personal, emotional success?
The people I consider successful are so because of how they
handle their responsibilities to other people, how they approach the
future, people who have a full sense of the value of their life and
what they want to do with it. I call people 'successful' not
because they have money or their business is doing well but because,
as human beings, they have a fully developed sense of being alive
and engaged in a lifetime task of collaboration with other human
beings -- their mothers and fathers, their family, their friends, their
loved ones, the friends who are dying, the friends who are being born.
Success? Don't you know it is all about being able to extend
love to people? Really. Not in a big, capital-letter sense but in
the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture,
word by word.
--Ralph Fiennes
The right to search for truth
implies also a duty
one must not conceal
any part
of what one has recognized
to be true
--Albert Einstein