Here is a collection of random, funny and sometimes wise, quotes. Attribution is often unknown or unsure.
The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat.
Why is the winner of the Miss Universe contest always from planet Earth?
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Sur le plus beau trône du monde, on n'est jamais assis que sur son cul.
Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can't go on without the facts.
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
There are 1011 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
C'est de l'enfer des pauvres qu'est fait le paradis des riches.
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Tout le monde a une montre, mais personne n'a le temps.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
If one is not ultimately predictable, then of course that's all it can be.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it is written on.
philosophy: The ability to bear with calmness the misfortunes of our friends.
Wise people speak because the have something to say. Fools speak because they have to say something.
It's not the years in your life that counts, it's the life in your years.
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
Un ami, c'est quelqu'un qui vous connaît bien, et qui vous aime quand même.
If I have made myself clear, you must have misunderstood me.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
It's the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves that you have a sense of humor.
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.
Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.
A gentleman is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice.
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.
Remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
Don't let your victories go to your head, or your failures go to your heart.
Moving fast is not the same as going somewhere.
How many people have telekinetic powers? Raise my hand!
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today, it's already tomorrow in Australia.
The best things in life are not things.
Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Man will become better when you show him what he is like.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
He who carves the Buddha never worships him.
Everybody wants to save the world, but nobody wants to help Mum with the dishes.
You see things; and you say, ``Why?'' But I dream things that never were; and I say, ``Why not?''
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
If it's not true, it's well found.
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
La publicité, c'est le bruit d'un bâton dans une auge à pâtée pour porcs.
Patience, n., a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ``Eureka!'' (I found it!) but ``That's funny...''
Appuyez-vous sur les principes, un jour ils finiront bien par céder.
When we write programs that ``learn'', it turns out we do and they don't.
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunay afternoon.
It's better to let people think that you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Experience is that marvellous thing that enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it again.
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
If you want sperm that produces Nobel Prize winners you should be contacting people like my father, a poor immigrant tailor. What have my sperm given to the world? Two guitarists!
As soon a 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.
Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when it is the only idea we have.
Where there's a will, there's a lawyer.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.
Ls gens superstitieux portent malheur.
As for the simplicity of the ways of God, this holds properly with respect to his means, as opposed to the variety, richness, and abundance, which holds with respect to his ends or effects.
Croyez ceux qui cherchent la vérité ; doutez de ceux qui la trouvent.
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.
Some things have to be believed to be seen.
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
The physicist rightly dreads precise argument, since an argument which is only convincing if precise loses all its force if the assumptions upon which it is based are slightly changed, while an argument which is convincing though imprecise may well be stable under small perturbation of its underlying axioms.
From the crooked timber of humanity, no truly straight thing can be made.
The subject matter is so attractive that only extravagant incompetence could make it dull.
I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others.
Give a man fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
[Kepler] preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, and that is the heart of science.
Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What have we to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!
Funeral by funeral, science makes progress.
Once ze rockets go up, who cares vhere zey come down? Zat's not my department.
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.
Galilée avait raison et était persécuté ; je suis persécuté, donc j'ai raison.
When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt.
Just don't create a file named -rf .
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.
Those that give up liberty to obtain safety deserve neither.
I come out of traditional mathematics where we prove things, but we don't charge people for using what we prove.
You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.
The point is, you see, that there is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad.
So great is the dignity and excellency of human nature, and so active those sparks of heavenly fire it partakes of, that they ought to be look'd upon as very mean, and unworthy the name of men, who thro' pusillanimity, by them call'd prudence, or thro' sloth, which they stile moderation, or else through avarice, to which they give the name of frugality, at any rate withdraw themselves from performing great and noble actions.
Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
One man's obfuscation is another man's abstraction.
The man who hath no music in himself---let no such man be trusted.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
La vie n'est tolérable que par le degré de mystification que l'on y met.
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
I was born at night... but not last night.