October 9, 2014
Humor that Inspires–for Teachers! Part V
If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1, and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4), here are more to kick-start your day:
- “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.”
– A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) - “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
– H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927 - “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
– Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962 - “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
– Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899 - “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
– Mark Twain (1835-1910) - “A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.”
– General George S. Patton (1885-1945) - “After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.”
– Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato) - “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
– Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) - “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
– last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923) - “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) - “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”
– Tom Clancy - “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
– Mark Twain (1835-1910) - “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”
– Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), “The Prince” - “Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.”
– Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) - “The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.”
– Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live - “We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees.”
– Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks - “Half this game is ninety percent mental.”
– Yogi Berra - “There is only one nature – the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole.”
– Bill Wulf - “There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
– Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) - “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
– Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) - “I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.”
– Cicero (106-43 B.C.) - “Love is friendship set on fire.”
– Jeremy Taylor - “God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time.”
– Robin Williams, commenting on the Clinton/Lewinsky affair - “My occupation now, I suppose, is jail inmate.”
– Unibomber Theodore Kaczynski, when asked in court what his current profession was - “Woman was God’s second mistake.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) - “This isn’t right, this isn’t even wrong.”
– Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), upon reading a young physicist’s paper - “For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.”
– Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) - “Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”
– Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) - “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
– Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) - “Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies.”
– Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan. - “Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.”
– Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) - “He would make a lovely corpse.”
– Charles Dickens (1812-1870) - “I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
– Irvin S. Cobb - “I worship the quicksand he walks in.”
– Art Buchwald - “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.”
– Mark Twain (1835-1910) - “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”
– Paul Valery (1871-1945) - “We are not retreating – we are advancing in another Direction.”
– General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) - “If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?”
– Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of supercomputing - “#3 pencils and quadrille pads.”
– Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when asked what CAD tools he used to design the Cray I supercomputer; he also recommended using the back side of the pages so that the lines were not so dominant. - “I just bought a Mac to help me design the next Cray.”
– Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when was informed that Apple Inc. had recently bought a Cray supercomputer to help them design the next Mac. - “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. - “I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.”
– Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues - “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.”
– Mark Twain (1835-1910) - “The truth is more important than the facts.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959) - “Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.”
– Wernher Von Braun (1912-1h977) - “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 speech was made 29 October 1941 to the boys at Churchill’s old public [private] school, Harrow–not Oxford or Cambridge:”Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
- I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by
Author: Douglas Adams
More great quotes with a sense of humor:
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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. She is webmaster for six blogs, CSG Master Teacher, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, a columnist for Examiner.com, featured blogger for Technology in Education, IMS tech expert, and a monthly contributor to TeachHUB. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
