Freebsd Fortunes 5

One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from
one end to the other.  Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70
percent discipline, like learning Latin.  But the good parts are, of course,
simply amazing.  God is an extremely uneven writer, but when He's good,
nobody can touch him.
                -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan. 1983

One of the chief duties of the mathematician in acting as an
advisor... is to discourage... from expecting too much from
mathematics.
                -- N. Wiener

One of the disadvantages of having children is that they eventually get old
enough to give you presents they make at school.
                -- Robert Byrne

One of the large consolations for experiencing anything
unpleasant is the knowledge that one can communicate it.
                -- Joyce Carol Oates

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to
do and always a clever thing to say.
                -- Will Durant

One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with
Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just
to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't
be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending
to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't
understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid.  He was
reknowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the
time, which obviously worried him, hence the act.  He preferred people to be
puzzled rather than contemptuous.  This above all appeared to Trillian to be
genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about.
                -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is...  If they do
foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little.
                -- Joe Martin

One of the most striking differences between a
cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
                -- Mark Twain

One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they
need no answer.
                -- George Gordon, Lord Byron

One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your
seat to another passenger.  This may seem callous, but it is the best
way, really.  If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who fainted
in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become disoriented and
imagine they were in Topeka Kansas.