"Gefährlich ist's, den Leu zu wecken,
Verderblich ist des Tigers Zahn;
Jedoch der schrecklichste der Schrecken,
Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn."

Friedrich Schiller: Das Lied von der Glocke, Verse 374-377.

"Irgendjemand muß Geist haben."

Signore Settembrini. Thomas Mann: Der Zauberberg.

"Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint!
Und das mit Recht, denn alles, was entsteht,
Ist wert, daß es zugrunde geht;
Drum besser wär's, daß nichts entstünde.
So ist denn alles, was ihr Sünde,
Zerstörung, kurz, das Böse nennt,
Mein eigentliches Element."

Mephisto. J.W. Goethe: Faust I, Studierzimmer (1).

"Männer mit Schnurrbärten sehen immer irgendwie traurig aus.
Frauen auch."

Lost in the Sauna. Florian Schiel 2009.

"Laß das Gespenst doch machen, was es will!"

Mephisto. J.W. Goethe: Faust II, Rittersaal

"Never touch a running SysOp!"

Bastard Ass(i) from Hell I. Florian Schiel 1997.

"Sometimes you need a bastard!"

Commander Samuel Vimes in Feet of Clay. Terry Prachett, 2000, HarperTorch, S. 84

Die einzige vernünftige Erklärung der Pyramiden:

"There is nothing mystical about the power of pyramids.
Pyramids are dams in the stream of time. Correctly shaped and orientated, with the proper paracosmic measurements correctly plumbed in, the temporal potential of the great mass of stone can be diverted to accelerate or reverse time over a very small area, in the same way that a hydraulic ram can be induced to pump water against the flow.
The original builders, who were of course ancients and therefore wise, knew this very well and the whole point of a correctly-build pyramid was to achive absolute null time in the central chamber so that a dying king, tucked up there, would indeed live forever - or at least, never actually die. The time that should have passed in the chamber was stored in the bulk of the pyramid and allowed to flare off once every 24 hours.
After a few aeons people forgot this and thought you could achieve the same effect by a) ritual b) pickling people and c) storing their soft inner bits in jars.
This seldom works."

Pyramids. Terry Prachett 1990, Corgi, S. 185.

"Having nothing feels liberating."

"Nerds tend to have cats, not dogs."

Douglas Coupland, 1994, Microserfs, S. 95, 97.

"People are idiots. Including myself."

"We expect others to act rationally even though we are irrational."

Scott Adams, 1996, The Dilbert Principle, HarperBusiness, S. 27.

"For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion."

Signor Benedick, Shakespeare, Much ado about nothing, Akt 5, Szene 4.

"Es ist eine ganz tolle Verzweiflung, wenn man merkt, dass man dort, wo man ist, nicht hingehört"

W. Genazino, Abschaffel, 2011 Hanser;München, S. 143

"I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago."

Edgar Allan Poe, ?, ?, ?.

"Alle guten Dinge haben etwas Lässiges und liegen wie Kühe auf der Wiese."

Friedrich Nietzsche, II, Aph. 107