776 Stupidest Things Ever Said Read Online Free PDF Page A

Words:
    [Personhole] is not an acceptable de-sexed word.
    Shirley Dean, councilperson from the Berkeley, California, City Council, explaining why the Council changed the wording in a sewer equipment request back to manhole cover
On Death:
    Before the Home Rule Bill is enforced, Asquith will have to walk over many dead bodies—his own included.
    from a 1914 letter written by an Ulster Unionist about Herbert Henry Asquith, British Prime Minister, who introduced a bill to grant Ireland self-rule
On Death:
    It is what we must all come to if we only live long enough.
    reported by David Garrick, eighteenth-century English actor, manager, and dramatist
On Death:
    My friends, I desire that you will make a post-mortem examination of me, and find out what ails me; for really I am dying to know what my disease is myself.
    James Smithson, benefactor of the Smithsonian Institution, on his deathbed
On Death, Government Ability to Communicate After:
    Your medical assistance is cancelled beginning 9/24/84 because of your death.
    letter from the Iowa Department of Human Services
On Death, Government Ability to Communicate After:
    Beginning in February 1976 your assistance benefits will be discontinued…. Reason: it has been reported to our office that you expired on January 1, 1976.
    Illinois Department of Public Aid
On Death, Life After:
    Beware! To touch these wires is instant death. Anyone found doing so will be prosecuted.
    on a sign at a railroad station
On Death, the Pope, and Baseball:
    Well, that kind of puts a damper on even a Yankee win.
    Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto, during a game in which news reached him that Pope Paul had died
On Death, the Pope, and Baseball:
    We just lost a Pope, which is very sad, and now we lost to the Yankees, which is also very sad.
    Humberto Cardinal Medeiros, discussing the loss of the Boston Red Sox to the Yankees during playoffs
On Death, Staying in the State of:
    At the next election, we have got to give the third, and I hope the last, death blow to Home Rule.
    Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, then leader of the Liberal Unionists in the House of Lords during the debate on Irish Home Rule
On Death, the Walking Variety:
    When an Englishman wants to get married, to whom does he go? To the clergy. When he wants to get his child baptised, to whom does he go? To the clergy. When he wants to get buried, to whom does he go?
    William E. Gladstone, leader of the Liberal Party of England and Prime Minister, in a speech extolling the clergy
On the Death Penalty, Thought-Provoking Questions About:
    Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years, with time off for good behavior?
    New York State Senator James H. Donovan on capital punishment
On Decision Making, Faster than Light:
    If you leave this question to us for three years, we will settle it tomorrow morning.
    Irish Member of Parliament during a nineteenth-century debate
On Definitions, Dubious Official:
    Democracy: A government of the masses…. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic—negating property rights…. Result is demogogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
    from the U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25, 1928
On Definitions, New Governmental:
    We found the term “killing” too broad.
    State Department spokesperson on why the word “killing” was replaced with “unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of life” in its human rights reports for 1984-85
On Definitions, Obvious:
    We may, of course, define emotions as the autopoetic immune system of the autopoetic psychic system; but again: is this emotionally adequate?
    Niklas Luhman, in his article “The Individuality of the Individual,” in Reconstructing Individualism
On Dioxin, the Good Side and the Bad Side of:
    [Exposure to dioxin is] usually not disabling but may be fatal.
    Dow Chemical Company report, as quoted in
The Progressive
On Diplomacy:
    Anything concerning the Ambassador’s swimming pool must be referred to as water