Aphorism of the Day

The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas Macaulay, History of England, I, in Vice and Virtue

Yield to temptation -- it may not pass your way again.

Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (Lazarus Long), in Vice and Virtue

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Thomas Jefferson, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Love cures people; both the ones who give it, and the ones who receive it.

Karl Menninger, in Love and Hate

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

William Shakespeare, Henry VI, in Wealth and Poverty

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

Gustave Flaubert, in Art and Literature

Law of Probability Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

Once you've accumulated sufficient knowledge to get by, you're too old to remember it.

Unknown, in Wisdom and Ignorance

My hands are free, but my mind hesitates.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

Mark Twain, in Vice and Virtue