If Sea Gates Don't Work, Call Canute - New York Times article about plans for ameliorating the city's flooding problems by constructing giant sea gates. [Requires free registration.]
Smithsonian Magazine - Turning the Tide - Article about the challenges Venetians faced from flooding. As water levels rise and foundations erode, the city must seek out new ways to save its fabled artworks and architectural treasures.
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost." (Aristotle) "Well begun is half done." (Aristotle) No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman. -- Honore de Balzac "I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is." (Alan Watts) He didn't say that. He was reading what was given to him in a speech.
-- Richard Darman, director of OMB, explaining why President Bush wasn't following up on his
campaign pledge that there would be Science and Environment We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.
-- Blaise Pascal, Thoughts, Chap. x. 1., Translated by O. W. Wight If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
-- Albert Einstein Men have become the tools of their tools.
-- Henry David Thoreau Science and Environment
See what will happen if you don't stop biting your fingernails?
-- Will Rogers, to his niece on seeing the Venus de Milo The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of
mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
-- Rita Mae Brown "The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. 'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'" (Lewi True thinkers are characterised by a blending of clearness and mystery.
-- Victor Hugo The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
- General George Patton Science and Environment Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and
begin slitting throats.
- Henry Louis Mencken A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.
- Frank Lloyd Wright What if it was cats who invented technology... would they have tv shows starring rubber sqeak
toys?
-- Douglas Coupland Science and Environment
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
-- Paul Ehrlich I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.
-- Zsa Zsa Gabor I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over
them on long winter evenings.
-- Humphrey Bogart to Lauren Bacall, in "The Big Sleep" An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have; the older she gets the more interested
he is in her.
-- Agatha Christie To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it;
whenever you're right, shut up.
-- Ogden Nash Science and Environment Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
- Irving Kristol Of course there's a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don't
take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates...
-- Anonymous "... and then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin) Science and Environment
A good marriage is at least 80 percent good luck in finding the right person at the right time. The
rest is trust.
-- Nanette Newman, British actress I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the
advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first.
-- Benjamin Franklin The best time to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.
-- Josh Billings Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
-- G. K. Chesterton Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with your wife.
-- P. J. O'Rourke Science and Environment There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats.
-- Albert Schweitzer University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
-- Henry Kissinger We haven't the money, so we've got to think.
-- Lord Rutherford Science and Environment
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
-- Paul Valery I owe the government $3400 in taxes. So I sent them two hammers and a toilet seat.
-- Michael McShane Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.
- Friedrich Nietzsche Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment. Baltasar
Gracian The great man fights the elements in his time that hinder his own greatness, in other words his own freedom and sincerity." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Science and Environment There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry.
-- George Armstrong Custer "The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization." (Mikhail Gorbachev, June 8, 1990) Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
-- G. K. Chesterton Science and Environment
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, "Is there a meaning to music?" My
answer would be, "Yes." And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer
to that would be I hate mankind, for I think myself to be one of them, and I know how bad I am.
-- Samuel Johnson Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and
austere, like that of sculpture.
-- Bertrand Russell Youth is wasted on the young.
-- George Bernard Shaw In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes.
-- Elizabeth Ashley Science and Environment Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the
really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
-- Mark Twain "Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts." (Henry B. Adams) God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
-- Voltaire Science and Environment
When yer in a funk, people in love are a royal pain in the patookus.
-- Portnoy, character in "Outland," comic strip by Berkely Breathed For the memory of love is sweet, though the love itself were in vain. And what I have lost of
pleasure, assuage what I find of pain.
-- Lyster Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of
humor is just common sense, dancing.
-- Clive James "I offer images; I conjure memories of freedom that can still be reached ... But, we can only open the doors. We can't drag people through. I can't free them unless they want to be free--more than any They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist---
-- John B. Sedgwick, general, dying words, 1864 Science and Environment "In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Lawyers are... operators of the toll bridge which anyone in search of justice must pass.
-- Jane Bryant Quinn The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, "Is there a meaning to music?" My
answer would be, "Yes." And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer
to that would be Science and Environment
Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their
teachers.
-- Socrates It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
-- François de La Rouchefoucauld The best theology would need no advocates; it would prove itself.
-- Karl Barth I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known.
-- Walt Disney Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
-- Aldous Huxley Science and Environment If it were weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all.
-- Rodney Dangerfield blah bl "Less is more." (Robert Browning) The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
-- George Bernard Shaw Science and Environment
A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.
-- James Lowell "The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves." (William Hazlitt) The work of internal government has become the task of controlling the thousands of fifth-rate
men.
-- Henry B. Adams A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.
-- Charles Evans Hughes "I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence." (Edger Allen Poe) Science and Environment "Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, they belong not to you. You may gi Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt Science and Environment
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are
difficult.
-- Seneca Actually, the only memory I have of being a Cub Scout was trying to get my hat back. That was all
I did. Run back and forth at my bus stop going "Quit it."
-- Jerry Seinfeld I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!
-- Will Rogers If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
-- Isaac Newton Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.
-- Marion Barry, Mayor, Washington, D.C. Science and Environment "A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) The person who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.
-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else does and thinking something
different.
-- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, 1937 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine Science and Environment
You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.
-- Louise Hay "I expect nothing. I fear no one. I am free." (Nikos Kazantzakis) A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no
religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of Intelligence has nothing to do with politics.
-- Londo Molari Science and Environment "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." (Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire, 1694-1778) A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their
graves obscure men whom timidity prevented from making a first effort.
-- Sydney Smith The story of a love is not important - what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps
the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.
-- Helen Hayes Science and Environment
