dark comedy: May 2010

Monday, May 31, 2010

Living in a State of Ambitious Poverty

We all live in a state of ambitious poverty. – Juvenal

To turn $100 into $110 is work. To turn $100 million into $110 million is inevitable. – Edgar Bronfman

To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and keep absolutely sober. – Logan Pearsall Smith

If all the rich men in the world divided up their money amongst themselve, there wouldn’t be enough to go around. – Christina Stead

He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year. –Leonardo da Vinci

The man who dies rich dies disgraced. – Andrew Carnegie

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Covering a Multitude of Sins

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Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues. – Quintilian

Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice. – Thomas Paine

Aphnology, n. The science of wealth. – Josefa Heifetz – Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary

Broker: the end-result of turning a large fortune into a small one. – Kurt Brouwer

Nothing could discredit capitalism more than a decision by the Russians to try it. – Jack Tanner

Riches cover a multitude of woes. – Menander

I’ve never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation. – Mike Todd

Saturday, May 29, 2010

The Small Man Thinks of Comfort

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There is a vast difference between understanding something well enough to buy it as opposed to understanding it well enough to sell it. - Zig Zigler

If you are sure you understand everything that is going on, you are hopelessly confused. – Walter Mondale

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. – Upton Sinclair

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. – George Washington

A man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. – Niccolo Machiavelli

If you give me six sentences written by the most innocent of men, I will find something in them with which to hand him. – Armand Jean du Plessis

The superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort. – Confucius

Friday, May 28, 2010

Hatred: the First Reaction to Truth

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If anyone in a discussion with us is not concerned with adjusting himself to truth, if he has no wish to find the truth, he is intellectually a barbarian. – Jose Ortega y Gasset

The first reaction to truth is hatred. – Tertullian

Truth hath a quiet breast. – William Shakespeare

Speak boldly, and speak truly, shame the devil. – John Fletcher

It takes two to speak the truth – one to speak and another to hear. – Henry David Thoreau

No generalization is wholly true, not even this one. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

You cannot conceive the many without the one. – Plato

Thursday, May 27, 2010

It's Rarely Pure and Never Simple

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Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth – to see it as it is, and tell it like it is – to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth. – Richard M. Nixon

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth. Denis Diderot

There are two kinds of truth, small truth and great truth. You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth. – Niels Bohr

The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. – Oscar Wilde

The truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news. – Allai E. Stevenson

No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truth has a way of shifting under pressure. – Curtis Bok

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Time Wounds all Heels

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Time wounds all heels. – Jane Ace

Time carries away all things, even our wits. – Virgil

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. – C. Northcote Parkinson

Since the early bird catches the worm, it’s a good idea to begin your day as soon as you can – unless of course, you happen to be a worm. – Edwin C. Bliss

Next week there can’t be any crisis. My schedule is already full. – Henry A. Kissinger

A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts. - Harold Macmillan

Apodictic, adj. – Clearly and undenialby true. – Joseph Heifetz Byrne – Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The Concatenation of Ephemeralities

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It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought. – John Kenneth Galbraith

Whatever a man does he must do first in his mind. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. – William James

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The worlds of thought and action overlap. What you think has a way of becoming true. – Roger von Oech

Something happens to a man when he puts on a necktie. It cuts off all the oxygen to his brain. – A.J. Carothers

All life is a concatenation of ephemeralities. – Alfred Kahn

Monday, May 24, 2010

The Meditation of One's Navel

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At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out. – Richard H. Brien

Charientism, n. A gracefully veiled insult. – Josefa Heifetz Byrne – Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. – Howard W. Newton

In the battle of existence, talent is the punch: tact is the clever footwork. – Wilson Mizner

It’s terribly difficult to offend people and influence them at the same time. – Zig Ziglar

A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. – Caskie Stinnett

Omphaloskepsis, n. Meditation while gazing at one’s navel. – Josefa Heifetz Byrne – Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Statistics: the Kind You Make Up

Image via Wikipedia

Investors want to believe. Always looking for a better way, a chance to gain an advantage in the market, they are particularly susceptible to arguments that use statistics. – Mark A. Johnson

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up. – Rex Stout

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem. – Henry A. Kissinger

Even when people are more successful than they had imagined nothing is ever achieve without giving something up. – Judith M. Bardwick

Success doesn’t mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle. – Edwin C. Bliss

Success is much more difficult to deal with than failure, because only you will know how you are handling it. – Harold Geneen

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity. – O.A. Battista

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Precise Psychological Moment to Say - Nothing

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Never say more than is necessary. – Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Silence is a friend who will never betray. – Confucius

He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing. – Oscar Wilde

Nothing is so simple it cannot be misunderstood. – Freeman Teague, Jr.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for. – John Lubbock

Never ever ever go to see the boss about a problem without bringing along a proposed solution. Better yet, three solutions. – Walter Kiechel III

Aclaculia, n. The inability to work with numbers; a mental block against arithmetic. – Josefa Heifetz Bryne, Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Self Pity can be Raised to Infinity

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The essential element in personal magnetism is a consuming sincerity – an overwhelming faith in the importance of the work one has to do. – Bruce Barton.

The mathematics of self-pity can be raised to infinitiy. –Cornelius Ryan

The value of anything is not what you get paid for it, nor what it cost to produce, but what you can get for it at an auction. – william Lyon Phelps

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. – Sinclair Lewis

All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values. – Marshall McLuhan

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. – Stephen Leacock

When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut. – P.L. Stewart

Security is Denial of Life

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Don’t lull yourself into a false state of security by engaging your skills for a week or two and then abandoning them. It’s what you do every day on the job that counts. – Warren H. Reed

He that is too secure is not safe. – Thomas Fuller

Security is a kind of death. – Tennessee Williams

Security is when everything is settled, when nothing can happen to you; securiry is a denial of life.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone. – Garbrielle Chanel

If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others. – Samuel Butler.

For workaholics, all the eggs of self-esteem are in the basket of work. - Judith M. Bardwick

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The Danger of Too Many Precautions

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A Ship is safe in port, but that’s not what ships are built for. – Grace Murray Hopper

He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea. – Thomas Fuller

Better hazard once than always be in fear. – Thomas Fuller

If you play it safe in life, you’ve decided that you don’t want to grow anymore. – Shirley Hufstedler

The chief danger in life is that you may make too many precautions. – Alfred Adler

Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without results. – Winston S. Churchill

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able Man who is willing to risk his fortune. – J. Paul Getty

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Glory's Small Change

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Popularity? It is glory’s small change. – Victor Hugo

Hypengyophobia – n. – Fear of responsibility – Hosefa Heifetz Byrne, Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary

Corporation, n. an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. – Ambrose Bierce

None know the weight of another’s burden. – thomas Fuller

The market doesn’t reward qualities that are not scarce. – Mark A. Johnson

When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity. -–John F. Kennedy

To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory. – Pierre Corneile

Monday, May 17, 2010

Interesting Answers Destroy the Questions

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Nothing is so good that some fault cannot be found with it. – Aesop fable

It’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. – Bertrand Russell

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question. – Eugene Ionesco

‘Tis not every question that deserves an answer. – Thomas Fuller

Good questions outrank easy answers. – Paul A. Samuelson

The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions. – Susan Sontag

An idealist believes the short run doesn’t count. A cynic believes the long run doesn’t matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run. – Sydney J. Harris

Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Univesal Innate Desire of all Organisms to live Beyond Income

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That’s the old American way – if you get a good thing, then overdo it. – Phil Walden

Trends, like horses, are easier to ride in the direction they are already going. – John Naisbitt

When you soar like an eagle, you attract the hunters. – Milton S. Gould

In attacking, unless you have a three-to-one advantage – and even if you do – go around the side. – Robert Heller

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. – Samuel Butler

Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields. – Peter Borden

Where I am today has everything to do with the years I spent hanging on by my fingernails. – Barbara Aronstein Black

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Like an Ox-Cart Driver in Monsoon Season

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Getting money is like digging with a needle. Spending it is like water soaking into sand. – Japanese proverb

The best plan is to profit by the folly of others. – Pliny the Elder

The happiest time in any man’s life is when he is in red-hot pursuit of a dollar with a reasonable prospect of overtaking it. – Henry Wheeler Shaw

The proper man understands equity, the small man profits. – Confucius

Where profit is, loss hides nearby. – Japanese proverb

Like a ox-cart driver in monsoon season or the skipper of a grounded ship, one must sometimes go forward by going back. – John Barth

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. – Mark Twain

Friday, May 14, 2010

Contracting New Debts is not the way to Pay Old Debts

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When politicians come up with a solution to your problem, you have two problems. – J. Kesner Kahn

The chief cause of problems is solutions. – Eric Sevareid

What may be done at any time will be done at no time. – Thomas Fuller

Properly used a pencil can be one of the most effective weapons against procrastination. – Edward C. Bliss

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. – Bible, Proverbs 13:12

If you want work well done, select a busy man; the other kind has no time. – Elbert Hubbard

To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones. – George Washington

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Interest Paid by Those who Borrow Trouble

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A problem is something you have hopes of changing. Anything else is a fact of life. – C.R. Smith

Worry, the interest paid by those who borrow trouble. – George W. Lyon

Nothing is easy to the unwilling. – Thomas Fuller

Intractable problems are usually not intractable because there are no solutions, but because there are no solutions without severe side effects. – Lester C. Thurow

The certainties of one age are the problems of the next. – Richard H. Tawney

People who are only good with hammers see every problem as a nail. – Abraham Maslow

All things are difficult before they are easy. - Thomas Fuller

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Loudness is Impotence

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Tis the sorest of all human ills, to abound in knowledge and yet have no power over action. – Herodotus

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. – Rene Descartes

The dinosaur’s eloquent lesson is that if some bigness is good, an overabundance of bigness is not necessarily better. – Eric Johnston

The more noise a man or a motor makes the less power there is available. – W.R. McGeary

Loudness is impotence. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight. – Horace

The very essence of all power lies in getting the other person to participate. – Harry Overstreet

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

When You Leave a Dragon out of your Calculations -

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What is the use of running when we are not on the right road. – German proverb

If you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else. – Laurence J. Peter

The reason why everybody likes planning is because nobody has to do anything. – Edmund G. Brown

When there is no vision, the people perish. – Bible

The first prerequisite of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces. – Aldo Leopold

Life is what happens while you are making other plans. – John Lennon

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. – J.R.R. Tolkien

Monday, May 10, 2010

They Have No Magic to Stir Men's Blood

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Most of life is routine – dull and grubby, but routine is the momentum that keeps a man going. If you wait for inspiration you’ll be standing on the corner after the parade is a mile down the street. – Ben Nicholas

Boldness in business is the first, second and third thing. – Thomas Fuller

There’s never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good. – Mandell Creighton

If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. – John Galesworthy

A danger forseen is half avoided. – Thomas Fuller

Make no little plans: they have no magic to stir men’s blood. – Make big plans, aim high in hope and work. – Daniel H. Burnham

Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Darkly Comical Side of Mother's Day

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From my friend Durry Garbutt on Mother's Day.

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE .
"If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished
cleaning."

2. My mother taught me RELIGION.
"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
"If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle
of next week!"

4. My mother taught me LOGIC.
" Because I said so, that's why."

5. My mother taught me MORE LOGIC .
"If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going
to the store with me."

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT.
"Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."

7. My mother taught me IRONY.
"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about.."

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS .
"Shut your mouth and eat your supper."

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.
"Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA ..
"You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."

11. My mother taught me about WEATHER.
"This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."

12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.
"If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!"

13. My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE.
"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.."

14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION .
"Stop acting like your father!"

15. My mother taught me about ENVY.
"There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who
don't have wonderful parents like you do."

16.. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
"Just wait until we get home."

17. My mother taught me about RECEIVING .
"You are going to get it when you get home!"

18. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.
"If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to get stuck
that way."

19. My mother taught me ESP.
"Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"

20. My mother taught me HUMOR.
"When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

21. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT .
"If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

22. My mother taught me GENETICS.
"You're just like your father."

23.. My mother taught me about my ROOTS.
"Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"

24. My mother taught me WISDOM.
"When you get to be my age, you'll understand."

And my favorite:

25.. My mother taught me about JUSTICE .
"One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you !"

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Holding Company: Place to Hide the Goods While A Company's being Searched

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Being an optimist after you have everything you want doesn’t count. – Abe Martin

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds and the pessimist fears this is true. – James Branch

It is certain because it is possible. – Tertullian

The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum. – Havelock Ellis

He that is everywhere is nowhere. – Thomas Fuller

A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you. – Will Rogers

Those who practice the same profession recognize each other instinctively; likewise those who practice the same vice. – Marcel Proust

To be Taken in by Hope

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Nothing is good or bad but by comparison. – Thomas Fuller

If there’s an opinion, facts will be found to support it. – July Sproles

When people are least sure they are often most dogmatic. – John Kenneth Galbraith

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did, I said I didn’t know. – Mark Twain

Future, Noun – that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured. – Ambrose Bierce – The Devil’s Dictionary

During the last recession, many companies faced the future with “cautious optimism.” Hardly any chose to face it with “reckless pessimism.”

More are taken in by hope than by cunning. – Luc de Clapiers

Monday, May 31, 2010

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