Freebsd Fortunes

Once Law was sitting on the bench
        And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
        Nor come before me creeping.
Upon you knees if you appear,
'Tis plain you have no standing here."

Then Justice came.  His Honor cried:
        "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!"
"Amica curiae," she replied --
        "Friend of the court, so please you."
"Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --
I never saw your face before!"
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human
beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by
side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them
which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the
sky.
                -- Rainer Rilke

Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of
us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of
the smaller prime numbers.

2:  The Odd Prime --
        It's the only even prime, therefore it's odd.  QED.
3:  The True Prime --
        Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you three times, it's true."
31: The Arbitrary Prime --
        Determined by unanimous unvote.  We needed an arbitrary prime
        in case the prof asked for one, and so had an election.  91
        received the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the
        next most.  However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none
        at all.

Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities are
derived from those primes.  So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd but
true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.

One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least
somebody's listening.
                -- Franklin P. Jones

"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative."

Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
                -- Chuq Von Rospach

One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing
how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.
                -- Professor Charles P. Issawi

One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.

One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell
the truth.  A gallows was erected in front of the city gates.  A herald
announced, "Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to
a question which will be put to him."  Nasrudin was first in line.  The
captain of the guard asked him, "Where are you going?  Tell the truth
-- the alternative is death by hanging."  "I am going," said Nasrudin,
"to be hanged on that gallows."  "I don't believe you."  "Very well, if
I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!"
"Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."

One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet
when well oiled.

One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they
never have to stop and answer the phone.