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Monty Python
Quotes, Aphorisms, Laws & Thoughts
Justice
A witness cannot give evidence of his age unless he can remember being born.
Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
Bacon's not the only thing
That's cured by hanging from a string.
Changing lawyers is like changing deck chairs on the Titanic.
Justice is incidental to law and order.
Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the Ritz Hotel.
Nobody is innocent.
Nothing is illegal until you get caught.
People who love sausage and people who believe in justice should never watch either of them being made.
The hangman let me down.
Wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
Laws
Agnes Allen's Law: Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
All generalisations are false, including this one.
Benchley's Law of Distinction: There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.
Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look.
Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.
Farnsdick's Corollary to the Fifth Corollary: After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat itself.
First Law of Bicycling: No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind.
Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
1. An object in motion will be heading in the wrong direction.
2. An object at rest will be in the wrong place.
Goldenstern's Rules:
1. Always hire a rich attorney.
2. Never buy from a rich salesman.
Gordon's First Law: If a project is not worth doing at all, it's not worth doing well.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
If you are already in a hole, stop digging.
If you don't care where you are, you aren't lost.
If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper.
If you want to drown yourself, make sure the water is deep enough.
Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets.
Leibowitz's Rule: When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands.
Mechanic's First Law: When in doubt, give it a clout.
Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.
Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.
Never insult an alligator until you have crossed the river.
Never play cards with a man named Doc, and never eat at a place called Mom's.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
Never spit in a man's face unless his moustache is on fire.
Paul's Second Law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up.
Peer's Law: The solution to the problem changes the problem.
Perkins' Postulate: The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
Pohl's Law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
Schmidt's Law: If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break.
Seeger's Law: (Anything in parenthesis can be ignored.)
The average person thinks he isn't.
The Law of Observation: Nothing looks as good close up as it does from far away.
The Whispered Rule: People will believe anything if you whisper it.
Universal Iceberg Theorem: Eight ninths of everything is hidden.
Weiler's Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
Weiner's Law of Libraries: There are no answers, only cross references.
When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.
Lies
A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.
Common Lies no.1: The cheque is in the mail.
Common Lies no.2: I love you.
Common Lies no.3: This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you.
Common Lies no.4: It's not the money that matters, it's the principle.
Common Lies no.5: I've never done this before.
Common Lies no.6: Money isn't everything.
He promised me earrings, but he only pierced my ears.
Hypocrisy is the vaseline of social intercourse.
I don't mind liars, but I do hate people who are inaccurate.
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
Life is Like That
Coito ergo sum.
Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat.
Ginsberg's Theorem:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.
I am a man of no convictions; at least I think I am.
I am - yet what I am none cares or knows.
I like pigs: dogs look up to us; cats look down on us; pigs treat us as equals.
If we see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of an oncoming train.
If you're not confused, you're misinformed.
It's a funny old world, a man's lucky if he can get out of it alive.
Just when you think you've finally hit bottom, someone tosses you an anchor.
Life always comes to a bad end.
Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.
Life is a beach, and then you drown.
Life is a jest; and all things show it.
I thought so once; but now I know it.
Life is a tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for a while and then act out our part in it.
Life is like a dog sled team: if you're not the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Life is the whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.
Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
May you live all the days of your life.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.
Start slow and taper off.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
The world is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.
There is no evidence to support the idea that life is serious.
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
To those who think that the law of gravity interferes with their freedom, there is nothing to say.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
We are born naked, wet and hungry; then things get worse.
When all is said and done, more is said than done.
Lingerie
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
Logic
Great things can be reduced to small things, and small things to nothing.
If the world were a logical place, men would ride side-saddle.
Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
The probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.
Love
A man in love mistakes a pimple for a dimple.
Amo
Amas
Amatit again.
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.
Better to have loved and lost a short person than never to have loved a tall.
I care for nobody, not I,
If no one cares for me.
If love be good, from whence cometh my woe?
If the heart is only a muscle, is love just an exercise?
In love there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek.
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
It is better to have loved and lost than to have loved and married.
It is easier to fake love than to hide it.
Love ceases to be pleasure, when it ceases to be a secret.
Love has no heart.
Love is like a good cigar: it can go out many times, but each time you relight it, it tastes worse.
Love is the crocodile on the river of desire.
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.
Man loves little and often, woman much and rarely.
Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it.
Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.
Men always want to be a woman's first love, women like to be a man's last romance.
Nothing is potent against love save impotence.
Oh, what lies there are in kisses!
Thousands have lived without love; not one without water.
Luck
Every silver lining has a cloud.
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
Magic
You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to loose its dangerous magic.
Management
A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to guarantee the flow of paper.
A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun.
A memorandum is not written to inform the reader but to protect the writer.
A tidy desk is the sign of a sick mind.
Amand's Law of Management: Everyone is always someplace else.
Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.
Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything.
At some time in the life cycle of every organisation, its ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out.
Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them.
Dates in the calendar are closer than they appear.
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.
If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges.
Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading it.
In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.
Management expands to meet the needs of management.
Never answer a letter until you get a second one on the same subject from the same person.
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules: The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
Rule of Defactualization: Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
Seminars: from 'semi' and 'arse', hence, any half-assed discussion.
The first myth of management is that it exists.
The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group.
The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.
Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving from where you left them to where you can't find them.
When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.
You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind
word alone.
Marriage
A bachelor is someone who never makes the same mistake once.
A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.
A man needs a mistress, just to break the monogamy.
A mother-in-law dies only when another devil is needed in hell.
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same thing.
Bigamy is the only crime where two rites make a wrong.
I married beneath me. All women do.
I shall marry in haste and repeat at leisure.
I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.
It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
Marriage is an attempt to change the night owl into a homing pigeon.
Marriage is not a word but a sentence.
Marriage is popular because it provides the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
Marriage means commitment but so does insanity.
Marriage without love means love without marriage.
Monogamy leaves a lot to be desired.
My toughest fight was with my first wife.
Never trust a husband too far or a bachelor too near.
So heavy is the chain of wedlock that it takes two to carry it, sometimes three.
The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time.
The happiest time of anyone's life is just after the first divorce.
The trouble with wedlock is that there's not enough wed and too much lock.
We wedded men live in sorrow and care.
When marriage is outlawed, only outlaws will have in-laws.
When you see what some girls marry, you realize how much they must hate to work for a living.
You cannot pluck roses without fear of thorns,
Nor enjoy a fair wife without danger of horns.
Mathematics
Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive.
If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number.
Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.
Some of it plus the rest of it is all of it.
There are 10 types of people in the world: those that understand binary and those that don't.
2 is not equal to 3; not even for very large values of 2.
Where are the calculations that go with the calculated risk?
Mediocrity
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
Perseverance: Mediocrity rewarded.
The Meek
It's going to be fun to watch and see how long the meek can keep the earth after they inherit it.
The meek shall inherit the earth. They won't have the nerve to refuse it.
The meek make things easier for the rest of us.
Men & Women
A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.
A succesful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A succesful woman is one who can find such a man.
A woman is a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
Belladonna: In Italian, a beautiful lady; in English, a deadly poison. A striking example of the identity of the two tongues.
Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.
Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.
Feminist Astronautics 101: If they can put one man on the moon, why can't they put them all?
Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.
Husbands are like fires. They go out if left unattended.
I like men to behave like men: strong and childish.
I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.
I only like two kinds of men: domestic and foreign.
I'm not denying that women are foolish; God Almighty made them to match the men.
If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
Intuition: that strange instinct that tells a woman she is right, whether she is or not.
It's women like you who make men like me make women like you make men like me.
Man has his will, but woman has her way.
Men are like linoleum. If you lay them right the first time, you can walk all over them for 20 years.
One is not born a woman, one becomes one.
The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.
The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
When subjected to extreme feminine heat and pressure, male hydrocarbons will often produce a diamond.
When women go wrong, men go right after them.
Women like silent men. They think they're listening.
Women were born without a sense of humour, so they could love men and not laugh at them.
Miami Beach
Miami Beach is where neon goes to die.
The Military
An army's weapons are made by the lowest bidder.
Draft beer; not people.
Friendly fire isn't.
If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; if you can't pick it up, paint it.
It is not known with what weapon World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
No guts, no glory. No brain, same story.
Old soldiers never die; young ones do.
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
Their's not to reason why, their's but to do and die.
There are three types of intelligence: human, animal and military. In that order.
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
War doesn't determine who's right; it determines who's left.
Misfortune
Misfortune: The kind of fortune that never misses.
We all have the strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
Money, Filthy Lucre
A man's grasp rarely exceeds his greed.
About the time we make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Better to be nouveau than never to have been riche at all.
By the time we've made it we've had it.
Canada Bill Jones' Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.
Supplement: A .44 magnum beats four aces.
Don't count your cheques before they're cashed.
Don't marry for money; it's cheaper to borrow it.
If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.
I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.
It is the wretchedness of being rich to have to live with rich people.
It's true that money talks. It usually says 'Goodbye'.
Money doesn't buy happiness; it rents it.
Money is just the poor man's credit card.
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
Money is paper blood.
Money is the root of all good and the fruit of all evil.
Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.
Money isn't everything. If it were, what would we buy with it?
Much will have more.
My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants.
Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.
No one appreciates thrift like an heir.
No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
Robin Hood only robbed the rich because the poor had no money.
The Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start with a large fortune.
There are three dimensions to credit cards: length, width and debt.
Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?
Morality
Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle.
If you're anti-abortion and pro capital punishment, you are only arguing about the timing.
It's hard to feel morally superior to a person who gets up earlier than you do.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
Morality is the weakness of the mind.
None of us can boast about the morality of our ancestors; the records do not show that Adam and Eve were married.
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
The Moral Majority is neither.
Motion
A kick in the ass is often a step forward.
Never mistake motion for action.
There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.
Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry.
Music
All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
If it's too loud, you're too old.
If you play country music backwards, you get your job, your wife, and your dog back, and your pick-up works again.
Music is essentially useless, as life is.
No opera plot can be sensible, for in sensible situations people do not sing.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
Schubert sonatas happen.
The opera isn't over till the fat lady sings.
The song is ended
But the melody lingers on.
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
Nostalgia
Everything was so different before it changed.
I remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.
I wish I were what I was when I wished to be what I am.
It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything.
Living in the past is cheaper.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.
Things are more like they used to be than they are now.
What did we do before we discovered nostalgia?
When you find the present tense and past perfect.
Compiled and edited by
Luis de Avendaño
Comments, amendments, suggestions and corrections to
Updated on Sunday, 24 January 2010
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