I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am a Skeptic. <…> I accept only what I am forced to accept by reasonably reliable evidence, and keep that acceptance tentative pending the arrival of further evidence.
— Isaac Azimov, Foundation and Earth

Me a sceptic? I hope you have proof.

The Laws of Robotics

• The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such order would conflict with the First Law.
• The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

— Isaac Azimov, Foundation and Earth

I don't believe anything. Gets in the way of learning.
— Lazarus Long

Occam's razor, principle that the fewest possible assumption are to be made in explaining a thing.
[f. William of Occam, English philosopher d.c. 1350]
— The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English

Reformulations:

1. Entities ought not to be multiplied except from necessity.
2. Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
   — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
3. Cut the crap.

If anything can go wrong, it will.
— Murphy Law

Anything good is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
— Pardo's Postulate

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
— Parkinson's Law

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
— Hanlon's Razor

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
— H. L. Mencken

It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.
— Polish proverb; also attributed to Deng Xiao Ping

There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
— Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour

Brains times beauty equals a constant.
— Beckhap's Law

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

Most general statements are false, including this one.

The first 80% of the task takes 80% of the time, and the last 20% of the task takes the other 80% of the time.
— 20/80 Principle

There are three types of people — those who can count and those who can't.

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
— B F Skinner, american psychologist

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
— Mark Twain

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
— Douglas Adams

You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.
— Margaret Thatcher, english prime minister

It is necessary to relax your muscles when you can. Relaxing your brain is fatal.
— Stirling Moss, British racing car driver, Newsweek May 16, 1955

Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
— Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary”

80% of all people consider themselves to be above average drivers.
— Grelb's Reminder

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.
— Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live

Do not look directly into laser beam with remaining eye.
— Warning sign in Sandia National Lab's Physics Department

Gehirn einschalten!
— Label on cover of Austrian made video recorder

Safety is not first. Safety is second. Victory (or success) is first.
— Jeff Cooper, Commentaries, Volume 11, Number 13.

A pint can't hold a quart. When holding a pint, it is doing the best that it can.
(1 pint = 0.57l or 1/2 quart)

It's later than we think.

Everything that can be invented has been invented.
— Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
[Update: apparently this is a misquotation]

Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.
— Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
— Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
— Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
— Sign in Church Brothers Automotive Body Works, established in 1929

The squeaky wheel doesn't always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.
— Vic Gold, IBM Customer Executive Conference Quotations, 1989

You know, of course, that the MIT SF society keeps a Bible in their comprehensive collection.
— David Mix Barrington

Everything is easy as long as you are not the schmuck who has to implement it.
— Ronald F. Guilmette

Too fucking busy, and vice versa.
— Dorothy Parker replying to her editor who was bugging her for her belated work while she was on her honeymoon

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
— Charlotte Whitton

Other than true crisis situations, there are only 2 reasons for someone to consistently stay late at work:

1. You don't know how to set priorities,
2. You don't want to go home.

— Gay Heitlinger, 1988

Indeed, "brute force" solutions are often characteristic of advanced cultures, not primitive ones. The Romans and their predecessors spent a long time figuring out how to build arches… and virtually all our buildings today use post-and-lintel construction, precisely what the arch was devised to replace. We have better materials and more money, and given that, arches are usually not worth the extra complexity.
— Henry Spencer

The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left.
— Jerry M. Wright

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
— Eleanor Roosevelt

Anything free is worth what you pay for it.

Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.

We're all the product of the choices we make.
— Pepsi-Cola commercial

Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Französen: Redet man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie es in ihre Sprache, und dann ist es alsobald ganz etwas anderes.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.
— Bertrand Russell

The Air Force is reacting to the EPA ban on CFC's by replacing them in the cooling systems of the intercontinental ballistic missiles.
— Access to Energy, July 1993

Life is short. Play hard.
— Reebok commercial

Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them.

No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time.
— The unwritten motto of United States Robots And Mechanical Man Corporation — Isaac Azimov, Catch That Rabbit

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
— William James

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped to be replased either by “k” or “s”, and likewise “x” would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which “c” would be retained would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform “w” spelling, so that “which” and “one” would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish “y” replasing it with “i” and Iear 4 might fiks the “g/j” anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez “c”, “y” and “x” — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais “ch”, “sh”, and “th” rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
— A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
— Charlie McCarthy

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?
— Clarence Darrow

Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction — from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.

Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten.

The climate of St.Petersburg is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
— Antoine de St. Exupery

I don't even butter my bread; I consider that cooking.
— Katherine Cebrian

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
— Abraham Lincoln

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
— Paul Valery

If somebody had told me I'd be Pope someday, I'd have studied harder.
— Pope John Paul I

Photographers are one of the most violent groups of people: first they frame you, then they shoot you, then they hang you on a wall.

Doing it right is not excuse for not meeting the schedule.

Do not regret growing older; it is a privilege denied to many.

Whenever two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary.
— Henry Ford

First rule of bear photography: You don't have to be faster than the bear; you just have to be faster than your assistant.
— National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
— Richard Feynman

A superior pilot uses his superior judgement to avoid using his superior skills.

I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself, “Dijkstra would not have liked this”, well that would be enough immortality for me.
— Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
— attributed to many including Rita Mae Brown and Ben Franklin

There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
— J.S. Bach

You really only need two tools: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use the WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use the duct tape.
— avweb.com "Finer Points of Maintenance" file

I think I think, therefore I think I am. I think.