| 13 April, 2009 |
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I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. Thank God, I have done my duty. Kiss me, Hardy. This is the last of earth! I am content.John Quincy Adams, last words, 21 February 1848. Chief of the Army. I still live.Daniel Webster, last words, 24 October 1852. I now have no time to be tired. Strike the tent.Robert E. Lee, last words, 12 October 1870. The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. Now comes the mystery.Henry Ward Beecher, last words, 8 March 1887. Let us cross the river, and rest under the trees. I have tried so hard to do the right. So little done--so much to do. Put out the light. I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. How is the Empire? The secret of being boring is to say everything. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts of tiny trumpets, we have met the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy. Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than minority of them - never become conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through? ... it is important to realize that any lock can be picked with a big enough hammer. The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be reguarded as a criminal offense. This document describes the usage and input syntax of the Unix Vax-11 assembler As. As is designed for assembling code produced by the "C" compiler; certain concessions have been made to handle code written directly by people, but in general little sympathy has been extended. Do not expose your LaserWriter to fire or intense heat. True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked. Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. The anatomical juxtaposition of 2 orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction. I bet the human brain is a kludge. If little else, the brain is an educational toy. I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension. O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! Secret thoughts and open countenance will go safely over the whole world. Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously! Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life. We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles. Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel. Experience teaches slowly and at the cost of mistakes. Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves. Nobel prize money is a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore in safety. For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed. Through and through the world is infested with quantity. To talk sense is to talk quantities, It is no use saying the nation is large- how large? It is no use s aying that radium is scarce- how scarce? You can not evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves. No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Los Angeles, it should be understood, is not a mere city. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash. Here is an artificial city which has been pumped up under forced draught, inflated like a balloon, stuffed with rural humanity like a goose with corn...endeavoring to eat up this too rapid avalanche of anthropoids, the sunshine metropolis heaves and strains, sweats and becomes pop-eyed, like a young boa constrictor trying to swallow a goat. It has never imparted an urban character to its incoming population for the simple reason that it has never had any character to impart. On the other hand, the place has the manners, culture and general outlook of a huge country village. You can rot here without feeling it. From Mount Hollywood, Los Angeles looks rather nice, enveloped in a haze of changing colors. Actually, and in spite of all the healthful sunshine and ocean breezes, it is a bad place - full of old, dying people, who were born old of tired pioneer parents, victims of America - full of curious wild and poisonous growths, decadent religious cults and fake science, and wildcat enterprises, which, with their aim for quick profit, are doomed to collapse and drag down multitudes of people. On thinking about Hell, I gather |
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