Freebsd Fortunes 4

In fact, S. M. Simpson, eventually devised an efficient 24-point Fourier
transform, which was a precursor to the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform
in 1965.  The FFT made all of Simpson's efficient autocorrelation and
spectrum programs instantly obsolete, on which he had worked half a lifetime.
                -- Proc. IEEE, Sept. 1982, p.900

In fiction the recourse of the powerless is murder;
in life the recourse of the powerless is petty theft.

In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a Communist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Jew.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.  Then they came for the
Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.  Then they came
for me -- and by that time no one was left to speak up.
                -- Pastor Martin Niemoller

In God we trust; all else we walk through.

In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker
know the truth of the matter about which he is to speak?
                -- Plato

In her first passion woman loves her lover,
In all the others all she loves is love.
                -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan"

In high school in Brooklyn
I was the baseball manager,
proud as I could be
I chased baseballs,
gathered thrown bats
handed out the towels                   Eventually, I bought my own
It was very important work              but it was dark blue while
for a small spastic kid,                the official ones were green
but I was a team member                 Nobody ever said anything
When the team got                       to me about my blue jacket;
their warm-up jackets                   the guys were my friends
I didn't get one                        Yet it hurt me all year
Only the regular team                   to wear that blue jacket
got these jackets, and                  among all those green ones
surely not a manager                    Even now, forty years after,
                                        I still recall that jacket
                                        and the memory goes on hurting.
                -- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance"

In Hollywood, all marriages are happy.  It's trying to live together
afterwards that causes the problems.
                -- Shelley Winters

In Hollywood, if you don't have happiness, you send out for it.
                -- Rex Reed

In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into
use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather
which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.
                -- Mark Twain