Minor Dictionary
of Humorous Quotations

Career | Children | Choice | Church | Cinema | Civilization | Cleverness | Clothes | Committees | Common sense | Compliment | Computerdom | Conclusion | Confidence | Conscience | Consolation | Contraceptives | Credit | Critics |

Glamour girl to male fellow worker: Yes, I can tell you how I got my rise, but I don't think it will help you much! H.M. Beuchat

A youngster next door is not completely useless. At least five mothers use him as a bad example. E. Dirkman

Boss to employee: "In a way I'll be sorry to lose you. You've been just like a son to me: insolent, surly and unappreciative." P. Thomas

Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? Murray Banks

Husband to wife as they start out to dinner, leaving their son with a babysitter: "I still say, when they begin to ask for a blonde instead of a brunette, they're old enough to stay alone!" Robert E. Wilson

I have stopped arguing with my teenage son about borrowing the car. Now, whenever I want it, I take it. G.E. Meyer

I remember my class-mates-cauliflower ears, broken noses, split lips-and the boys were just as bad! Jimmy Tarbusk

Madam, there is no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender. W.C. Fields

Most children enjoy seeing flowers come up - mostly by the roots.

Mother of small boy to psychiatrist: "Well, I don't know whether he feels insecure, but everybody else in the neighbourhood certainly does." V.L. Guffey

My husband calls me Claustrophobia because I leave in constant fear of confinement. Mother of Children

School driver: a man who thought he liked children.

Skoff's law: A child will not spill on a dirty floor.

There are only two things a child will share willingly - communicable diseases and his mother's age. Dr. B. Spoke

Today's teenagers can be described in one word: 'Fastidious' - the girls are 'fast' and the boys are 'hideous'.

When I was eight years old my father told me about the birds and the bees. The next day a bee stung me, and for seven months I thought I was pregnant. B. George

Beggars can scarcely be choosers. Robert Browning

A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. Abigail van Buren

I was told not to shoot until I saw the whites of their thighs! Cameraman working on an X-certificate film

Ghandi was once asked: "What do you think of Western civilization?" "I think it would be a good idea," he replied.

Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else - unless it is an enemy. A. Einstein

All true wisdom is found on T-shirts.

A low-cut dress should be like a garden gate - to guard the property without blocking the view.

A low neckline is something you look down upon and approve at the same time.

A mini-skirt gives men an untaxable fringe benefit.

For years women have said that they have nothing to wear. Well, this year they are wearing it. Robert Orben

He has definite tastes about woman's clothes. He can't stand his(wife in anything over four-pounds-ten.

Perhaps those suits are called bikinis because they don't cover the girls atoll. Robert Orben

The first mini-skirts: Eve's leaves. M.H. Beuchat

The first thing the modern baby learns at its mother's knee is not to ladder her tights.

Women's clothes nowadays are all strip and no tease. Peter Ustinov

A best committee consists of two members, one of whom is ill.

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

A committee is a 'cul-de-sac' to which ideas are lured and quietly strangled. John A. Lincoln

If Moses had been a committee, the Israelites would still be in Egypt. J.B. Hughes

If you live in a country run by a Committee, be on the Committee. Graham Summer

One seldom sees a monument to a committee.

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it. René Descartes

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. V. Hugo

A computer, to print out a fact,
Will divide, multiply and subtract.
But this output can be
No more than debris,
It the input was short of exact.
Gigo

And on the seventh day, he exited from the append mode.

As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. Weisert

As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code.

At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors including the error of blaming it on the computer.

A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
She found a good way
To combine work and play:
She sells C shells by the sea shore.

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

Golub's second law of computerdom: A carelessly planned project takes 3 times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as long.

How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None: "We'll fix it in software."

How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None: "We'll document it in the manual."

How many TEX writers does it take to change a light bulb?
None: "The user can work it out."

How many Zen masters does it take to change a light bulb?
None: The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way.

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov

If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.

Information center: A room stuffed by professional computer people whose job it is to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.

Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And plunged it deep into the VAX.
Don't you envy people who
Do all the things you want to do?

Leo Beiser's first computer axiom: When putting it into memory, remember where you put it.

Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. Werner von Braun

Manual: A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need is in the others.

May be computer science should be in the college of theology. R.S. Barton

Micro credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.

Mosher's law of software engineering: Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job.

Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
Three megs for the system source;
One disk to rule them all,
One disk to bind them,
One disk to hold the files
And in the darkness grind them.

New systems generate new problems.

Office automation: the use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone you would want to talk with over coffee.

On a clear disk you can seek forever.

On-line: the idea that a human being should be always accessible to a computer.

Prospective buyer to an electronic-brain salesman: "$250,000 is a little steep. Do you have one with a lower IQ?"

The fourth law of computing: On a slow day, you can wait forever.

To err is human... to really foul things up requires a computer.

A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.

Major premise: sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor premise: one man can dig a posthole in sixty second.
Conclusion: sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. Ambrose Bierce

Confidence is a feeling you get before you really understand the problem. A. Brown

Confidence is simply that quiet, assured feeling you have just before you fall flat on your face. Dr. L. Binder

I have a terrible conscience - it doesn't keeps me from doing things; it just keeps me from enjoying them. New York Journal

It's over and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man's head off. Sam Weller in Charles Dickens's PICKWICK PAPERS

What Roman Catholics call contraceptives are used by Protestants on every conceivable occasion.

Credit: a person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Charles Dickens

When someone says, "I do not wish to appear critical," it means he is going to let you have it.