Freebsd Fortunes 6

The man she had was kind and clean
And well enough for every day,
But oh, dear friends, you should have seen
The one that got away.
                -- Dorothy Parker, "The Fisherwoman"

The Man Who Almost Invented The Vacuum Cleaner
        The man officially credited with inventing the vacuum cleaner is
Hubert Cecil Booth.  However, he got the idea from a man who almost
invented it.
        In 1901 Booth visited a London music-hall.  On the bill was an
American inventor with his wonder machine for removing dust from carpets.
        The machine comprised a box about one foot square with a bag on top.
After watching the act -- which made everyone in the front six rows sneeze
-- Booth went round to the inventor's dressing room.
        "It should suck not blow," said Booth, coming straight to the
point.  "Suck?", exclaimed the enraged inventor.  "Your machine just moves
the dust around the room," Booth informed him.  "Suck?  Suck?  Sucking is
not possible," was the inventor's reply and he stormed out.  Booth proved
that it was by the simple expedient of kneeling down, pursing his lips and
sucking the back of an armchair.  "I almost choked," he said afterwards.
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"

The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd.
The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever
been.
                -- Alan Ashley-Pitt

The man who has never been flogged has never been taught.
                -- Menander

The man who laughs has not yet been told the terrible news.
                -- Bertolt Brecht

The man who raises a fist has run out of ideas.
                -- H.G. Wells, "Time After Time"

The man who runs may fight again.
                -- Menander

The man who sees, on New Year's day, Mount
Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant is forever blessed.
                -- Old Japanese proverb

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that
will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
                -- Mark Twain

The man who understands one woman is
qualified to understand pretty well everything.
                -- Yeats