Happy Thoughts A fragmented personal philosophy of sorts, synthesized in the   borrowed words of others.

"Getting a graduate degree in Philosophy means watching your friends buy their first house while you don't have enough money to buy a pizza." Larry Cahoone

"I would believe only in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity-- through him all things fall." Friederich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human brain each day, expressed in M&Ms: 250

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." -- Aldous Huxley

"My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth--that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally--but I didn't want to upset him." Jack Handey

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then they beat you with experience.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

"If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised." Dorothy Parker

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." H. L. Mencken

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." Voltaire

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife." Douglas Adams

"Be true to your work, your word and your friend." Henry David Thoreau

"A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out." Samuel Johnson

The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.