Freebsd Fortunes 2

        "Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his
mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse.
        "What do you keep that mouse for?" I said.  "You should either
bury it or else throw it into the brook."
        "Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno.  "How ever would you
do a garden without one?  We make each bed three mouses and a half
long, and two mouses wide."
        I stopped him as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me
how it was used...
                -- Lewis Carroll, "Sylvie and Bruno"

        "Yo, Mike!"
        "Yeah, Gabe?"
        "We got a problem down on Earth.  In Utah."
        "I thought you fixed that last century!"
        "No, no, not that.  Someone's found a security problem in the physics
program.  They're getting energy out of nowhere."
        "Blessit!  Lemme look...  <tappity clickity tappity>  Hey, it's
there all right!  OK, just a sec...  <tappity clickity tap... save... compile>
There, that ought to patch it.  Dist it out, wouldja?"
                -- Cold Fusion, 1989

        "You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?"
        "The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as --"
        "My blushes, Watson," Holmes murmured, in a deprecating voice.  "I
was about to say 'as he is unknown to the public.'"
                -- A. Conan Doyle, "The Valley of Fear"

        "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon
airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in
deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me
when I was young!"
        "Why, what did she tell you?"
        "I don't know, I didn't listen."
                -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

        "You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you
any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you
fit to hear his view of things?"
        "Quite the contrary.  You must defend your integrity, assuming
you have integrity to defend.  But you must defend it nobly, not by
imitating his own low behavior.  If you are gentle where he is rough,
if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as
potentially worthy.  If he does not, then he is not a master, after all,
and you may feel free to kick his ass."
                -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume"

        "You say there are two types of people?"
        "Yes, those who separate people into two groups and those that
don't."
        "Wrong.  There are three groups:
                Those who separate people into three groups.
                Those who don't separate people into groups.
                Those who can't decide."
        "Wait a minute, what about people who separate people into
two groups?"
        "Oh.  Okay, then there are four groups."
        "Aren't you then separating people into four groups?"
        "Yeah."
        "So then there's a fifth group, right?"
        "You know, the problem is these idiots who can't make up their
minds."

        Young men and young women may work systematically six days in the
week and rise fresh in the morning, but let them attend modern dances for
only a few hours each evening and see what happens.  The Waltz, Polka,
Gallop and other dances of the same kind will be disastrous in their effects
to both sexes.  Health and vigor will vanish like the dew before the sun.
        It is not the extraordinary exercise which harms the dancer, but
rather the coming into close contact with the opposite sex.  It is the
fury of lust craving incessantly for more pleasure that undermines the
soul, the body, the sinews and nerves.  Experience and statistics show
beyond doubt that passionate excessive dancing girls can hardly reach
twenty-five years of age and men thirty-one.  Even if they reached that
age they will in most instances be broken in health physically and morally.
This is the claim of prominent physicians in this country.
                -- Quote from a 1910 periodical

        Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that bring
electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a chance to
kill you.  This is called a "circuit".  The most common home electrical
problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit breaker"; this causes
the electricity to back up in one of the wires until it bursts out of an
outlet in the form of sparks, which can damage your carpet.  The best way
to avoid broken circuits is to change your fuses regularly.
        Another common problem is that the lights flicker.  This sometimes
means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more often it means
that your home is possessed by demons, in which case you'll need to get a
caulking gun and some caulking.  If you're not sure whether your house is
possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a fine documentary film based on an
actual book.  Or call in a licensed electrician, who is trained to spot the
signs of demonic possession, such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous
cats on the dinette table, etc.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

        "Your son still sliding down the banisters?"
        "We wound barbed wire around them."
        "That stop him?"
        "No, but it sure slowed him up."

        Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of
the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance
of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.
        Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow
old only by deserting their ideals.  Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up
enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair
-- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit
back to dust.
        Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love
of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and
thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite
for what next, and the joy and the game of life.
        You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your
self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your
despair.
        So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage,
grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long
you are young.
                -- Samuel Ullman