Thursday 26 December 2013

Perfectamundo

"Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!"
Genesis 1:31 

i.e. When our imaginary friend looked over his handiwork,
a world in which beings that feel pain and terror are eaten alive, 
his judgement was "very good!"

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Conditions May Apply

The large print giveth, 
and the small print taketh away.
 — Tom Waits

Monday 23 December 2013

Q.E.D.

If ignorance is bliss, 
why aren't there more happy people?

Sunday 22 December 2013

Consensus

The fact that an opinion has been widely held 
is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; 
indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, 
a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
 — Bertrand Russell

Saturday 21 December 2013

Market Forces

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, 
the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
 — PJ O'Rourke

Friday 20 December 2013

Mute Point

I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up.
 — Tom Lehrer

Thursday 19 December 2013

The Generosity Of The Rich

I have long been of the opinion 
that if work were such a splendid thing 
the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.
 — Bruce Grocott

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Compare And Contrast

Nice people have to be bastards every once in a while 
so that others can fully appreciate their gentle, loving nature.
 — Dionisio

Tuesday 17 December 2013

Monday 16 December 2013

Scientific American

Study finds that psychologists are hard-wired to think in terms of computer metaphors.

Sunday 15 December 2013

Schoolteacher Syndrome

The smugness that arises from not being smart enough to know you're not smart.

(cf morosoph:  a fool who thinks he’s cleverer than he is.)

Friday 13 December 2013

Holiday Traffic

The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
 — Noelie Altito

Thursday 12 December 2013

Fear And Laughing

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, 
you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
 — Dame Edna Everage

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Procrastination

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Tuesday 10 December 2013

Lab Rats

Experience is what enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it again.

Monday 9 December 2013

Memento Mori

The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, 
which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.
 — Nelson Mandela

Sunday 8 December 2013

Lest We Forget

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.
 — Nelson Mandela

Saturday 7 December 2013

RIP

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, 
it is the United States of America.
 — Nelson Mandela

Sunday 1 December 2013

Why Ethics Committees Attract Bullies

Ethicists issue the commands that they insist other people must obey.

Monday 25 November 2013

The Multiversity

The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, 
that it is suspended between its position in the external world, 
with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, 
and the splendid world of our imagination.
 — Richard Hofstadter

Thursday 21 November 2013

B Grade

The best minds are not in government.
 – Ronald Reagan

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Minority Ruled

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
 — H. L. Mencken

Saturday 16 November 2013

Holeness

Sanity means the wholeness of the consciousness.
And our society is only part conscious, like an idiot.
 — D.H. Lawrence

Monday 11 November 2013

Undead Canary

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
 — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Sunday 10 November 2013

Dunces

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: 
that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
 — Jonathan Swift

Friday 8 November 2013

Cops'R'Tops

I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.
 — Brendan Behan

Thursday 7 November 2013

Rabble Rousing

I never desired to please the rabble. 
What pleased them, I did not learn; 
and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.
 — Epicurus

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Purgatory

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
 — Mark Twain

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Machophilia

Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.
 — Aldous Huxley

Monday 28 October 2013

One Of A Kind

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. 
Just like everyone else.
 — Margaret Mead

Sunday 27 October 2013

Money Puppets

Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
 — William Somerset Maugham

Saturday 26 October 2013

Doping With Hope

A leader is a dealer in hope.
 — Napoleon Bonaparte

Friday 25 October 2013

The Selfish Egg

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
 — Samuel Butler

Wednesday 23 October 2013

Creatorism

Creationism is Bronze Age science.
Creationists are Bronze Age scientists.

Sunday 20 October 2013

You Can't Choose Your Relations

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
 — H. L. Mencken

Saturday 19 October 2013

Non Cogito Non Sum

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
 — Bertrand Russell

Friday 18 October 2013

Occam's Eraser

Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.
 — Napoleon Bonaparte

Thursday 17 October 2013

The Lore Of Averages

The average person thinks he isn’t.
 — Larry Lorenzoni

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Peerless Pressure

You laugh at me because I am different, 
but I laugh at you because you are all the same.
 — Unknown

Tuesday 15 October 2013

It Got Worse

Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
— Fred Allen (1894-1956)

Monday 14 October 2013

Ends And Means

Religion ends and philosophy begins,
just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins,
and astrology ends and astronomy begins.
 — Richard Dawkins

Sunday 13 October 2013

Humbled

Don’t be so humble — you are not that great.
 — Golda Meir

Saturday 12 October 2013

Friday 11 October 2013

Afterthought

There is an afterlife.
It's called death.

Thursday 10 October 2013

What's My Line?

I am a Marxist — of the Groucho variety.
 —Anonymous

Wednesday 9 October 2013

The Weakest Link

Every new fossil creates two new missing links.
 — Richard Dawkins

Tuesday 8 October 2013

Bank On It

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
 — Thomas Jefferson

Monday 7 October 2013

Press Gang

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
 — H. L. Mencken

Sunday 6 October 2013

Free Market

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, 
which are embodied in one maxim: 
The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
 — Bertrand Russell

Saturday 5 October 2013

Political Respectability

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
 — George Orwell

Tuesday 1 October 2013

I'll Buy That

War against a foreign country only happens 
when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
 — George Orwell

Monday 30 September 2013

Politer

When childhood dies, 
its corpses are called adults 
and they enter society, 
one of the politer names of hell. 
 — Brian Aldiss

Thursday 26 September 2013

Adolthood

One cannot really be a Catholic and grown up.
 — George Orwell

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Made In His Image

God has no religion.
 ― Mahatma Gandhi

Monday 23 September 2013

Marginal Utility

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little — 
or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature 
than from the sins of the world in which he lives.
 — Anthony Trollope

Sunday 22 September 2013

The Function Of Teachers

Those who know how to think need no teachers.
 — Mahatma Gandhi

Saturday 21 September 2013

Laughter Is The Best Religion

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
 — Robert A. Heinlein

Friday 20 September 2013

Revolving

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; 
one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
 — George Orwell

Thursday 19 September 2013

Grave New World

Maybe this world is another planet's hell.
 — Aldous Huxley

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Proselytising Zeal

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytising zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas.
 — Aldous Huxley

Saturday 14 September 2013

Idiots

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
 — Plato

Friday 13 September 2013

Demanding With Menaces

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed 
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) 
by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, 
all of them imaginary.
 — HL Mencken