Libraries and other such

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a sort of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges

Well, you know how libraries are. Some book opens the door, some folio pours you a cup of tea, and before you know you're getting chatty with the photocopy machine and your library card is baking cookies. -- Morwen

An immense and ever-increasing wealth of knowledge is scattered about the world today; knowledge that would probably suffice to solve all the mighty difficulties of our age, but it is dispersed and unorganized. We need a sort of mental clearing house for the mind: a depot where knowledge and ideas are received, sorted, summarized, digested, clarified and compared. -- H.G. Wells, in The Brain: Organization of the Modern World, 1940

Discourse

Careful and correct use of language is a powerful aid to straight thinking, for putting into words precisely what we mean necessitates getting our own minds quite clear on what we mean. -- W.I.B. Beveridge, who probably would have liked this illustration of his point.

You might also want to read the Whorf-Sapir work on language, which gets into the whole thought/meaning/language issue from a slightly different angle. One part of their work concludes that language constrains the thoughts that you can think, and that each language has a "map" of external reality built into it. As you formulate new concepts, your language will have to expand to include that concept. The more languages you learn, the more varied your map becomes, and (presumably) the closer to "objective" reality. Even though objectivity is frequently in the eye of the beholder. :-) But to see a REALLY different way that reality can be mapped, Whorf discusses the Hopi language. None of this noun/verb stuff that conditions us to see objects and actions between them. The division is between manifest and non-manifest components of the world. Try using THAT as a basis for a software methodology. -- Chris Clayton (USFMCNCG@ibmmail.com), posting to comp.software-eng

Balance

Apollo, the god of light, of reason, of proportion, harmony, number -- Apollo blinds those who press too close in worship. Don't look straight at the sun. Go into a dark bar for a bit and have a beer with Dionysios, every now and then. -- Ursula K. Le Guin, from the introduction to _The Left Hand of Darkness_

Better to be good without reason than to be evil for a hundred good reasons. -- Gene Wolfe

"I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself." -- Tom Stoppard

And isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean, all you get is one trick: rational thinking. But when you're good and crazy ... hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo ... the sky's the limit! -- The Tick

Traveling the Road

And always remember, as you travel down life's road, to stop and eat the roses -- Cow Philosophy, Gary Larson

I listen for returning feet, and voices at the door. -- JRR Tolkein

The stillness of the countryside struck me repeatedly, until I fell down -- J. Cocula on his travels in Ireland

Amateurs worry about strategy. Dilettantes worry about tactics. Professionals worry about logistics. -- anon/unknown

Performance/Art

Sometimes, you just have to let your freak flag fly. -- Joe Kubinski

The purpose of art is to make people more present in their lives. -- Ann Hamilton, lecture on installation art at Yale, 2000

Truth, Learning, and Cognition

Facts are not science, as the dictionary is not literature. -- Martin Fischer

Mock him not for a heap of eels; speculate never on the unfortunate experiences with smurf puppets, boiled Listerine, squeaky toys, badly attached electrodes, and anchovy marmalade that have made him his present self... - Graydon Saunders

Politics

The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to have its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards. -- Sir William Francis Butler

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. -- MLK

Direct democracy creates an "aristocracy of orators." -- Thomas Hobbes

Media Puppy

Ignorance is not the enemy. Tooth decay is the enemy. - Daniel Day Lewis, Eversmile, New Jersey (dentist travels through Patagonia on cycle with sidecar to "spread dental consciousness")

Ever since my parents' disastrous expedition to Antarctica, bad luck has been my companion. -- Devil-Man: The Birth (anime)

2MUCHTV

Other than the fact that I'll never know joy again, I feel fine. - Crooowww, MST3K, Red Zone Cuba

Furst, yuoo need a muuse-a. Here-a, muusey, muusey, muusey! - The Swedish chef, explaining how to make chocolate mousse.

Hello, my name is Arthur, and this is my diversion... The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water-spout... - Guess who, from The Tick

Actually, what happens in the final episode is that Col. Hogan breaks into the commandant's headquarters, seeking to unmask the real No. 1, and discovers -- much to his surprise -- his own visage. The camp guards escape in a rocket ship, and Hogan speeds through downtown London on a motorcycle, a dwarf accompanying him. -- moe@radix.net, to alt.shenanigans?

Surfin' USA

"People are complex: they have both real and imaginary parts." -- Angi Long of House Windstalker

You know, I got a Magnetic Stud Finder from the hardware store, but it just doesn't work the way I hoped it would. -- Stephanie Dobler , r.a.t.m.m

All types of dragonflies - blue ones, red ones, big brown ones - they've all sat on my shoulder at some time. They don't just land on me and fly off, either. They actually sit on my arm or hand or shoulder for 5 minutes at a time. I don't know why; maybe they like my gigantic compound eyes. -- Dave "leader of the dragonfly army" Calam , alt.pinecone

Questions, Questions

Well, we're in a nice jam. A monster running loose, our plane is ruined, and we're marooned aboard an abandoned ship with a strange cargo. What do we do now, doctor? -- 'Race' Bannon

Look, if you're not going to kill me, could you at least get me a ham sandwich? -- Tom Servo, pasted to the wall in MST3K (Fire Maidens from Outer Space)