My pass had disappeared. Not that I believed for a moment that this was an accident; in fact, I had suspected for some time now that the Cosmic Command, obviously no longer able to supervise every assignment on an individual basis when there were literally trillions of matters in its charge, had switched over to a random system. The assumption would be that every document, circulating endlessly from desk to desk, must eventually hit upon the right one. A time-consuming procedure, perhaps, but one that would never fail. The Universe itself operated on the same principle. And for an institution as everlasting as the Universe — certainly our Building was such an institution — the speed at which these meanderings and perturbations took place was of no consequence.
Stanislaw Lem in Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1973)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
In Memoriam (A Child Missed)
A desk lies empty
A missing face to find
A child soon missed by some
Another life consumed by one
A classmate questioned
A missing child to find
While a desk lies empty
A hope dwindles with time
As a child's life once abound
A child's fate is now found
While a desk lies empty
A lifeless child is found
As questions of why arise
A time for tears to flow
While a desk lies empty
A prayer for a missed child we know
A quiet voice to miss
A child missed we know
While a desk lies empty
A question of why to know
A future now not to be
A tragic loss we are told
While a desk lies empty
An answer of why yet untold
A myriad of lives changed
Another youthful innocent lost
While a desk lies empty
At a life's innocence cost
A society believed so rich
And yet a life's worth so poor
While a desk lies empty
Another child's life's no more
A time to ponder a commitment
A life's question to answer
While a desk lies empty...
poem by Robert John Meehan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sir, I see a lot of documents in my day-to-day business, and I can't tell you every document that I've seen. It may have passed across my desk. It may not have passed across my desk. I truthfully cannot answer that question, other than to say I don't remember.
quote by Rand Beers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Back Into The Universe
This is your God repeat
As we wander back into the universe
We render ourselves into a higher plane
Believing we will never wonder why again
He surely must be laughing mr universe
Seeing us slowly head towards our goal
Only the joke is we dont know what it is at all
Yet our gods teach us divinity
And we go on searching for you and me
As for the universe
This is your god
The orders truly random in the universe
And where will we be in a thousand years
Soothingly searching to allay our fears
Well now weve wandered backwards to eternity
Were changing the concept of belief in time
Re arranging the clock that dictates our minds
Yet our gods teach us divinity
And we go on searching for you and me
As for the universe
This is your god
As for the universe
This is your god
This is your god
song performed by by Simply Red
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Redundant.
.
The skull that grins upon my desk
I picked up at a car boot sale
Although my taste me seen grotesque.
The skull reminds me without fail.
As he is now so will I be.
In time to come I too must die
I don't suppose he thought that he.
Would end up as a bargain buy.
When I am dead my skull may be.
An ornament that's on display.
On someone's desk quite possibly
What does it matter anyway.
Though it was mine it is not me.
It never was nor will it be.
Saturday,08 September 2012
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.
We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds our planet is the mental institution of the universe.
Today... 'The Beginning and the End
Before the dawn of earths time Jesus stood
and He spoke the awesome life giving Word.
At the threshold of this worlds history
commenced creation with words 'Let there be.'
All things then materialised in space
at His command the earth took up its place.
Starry hosts were born as the Lord God breathed
by His Word the Universe was conceived.
Alive before the beginning was He
at the end of this age He will also be.
Through the eons of history always there
no earthly day has been beyond His care.
Outside of time this everlasting man
will outlive the universe by His plan.
From eternity He alone is Lord.
The First and the Last and the final word.
Without beginning, without end is He
and has always been and will always be.
Beyond earth's future reigns eternally
when time has gone and all men bow the knee.
He is
The Alpha and the Omega
The Beginning and the End
The First and the Last
The Ancient of Days
(see also the additional information in the Poet's notes box below)
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
quote by Groucho Marx
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The deadlines are much, much longer with books. When I was a reporter, a lot of times I'd come in at 8:30 a.m., get an assignment right away, interview somebody, turn the story in by 9:30, and have the finished story in the paper that landed on my desk by noon.
quote by Margaret Haddix
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
We can speak about the institution, but ultimately the bar is the group that both is in touch with the public on the one hand and understands the judicial institution on the other.
quote by Stephen Breyer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet.
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?
quote by H.L. Mencken
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution.
quote by H.L. Mencken
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian
I Wrote A Poem Across The Universe
I wrote a poem across the Universe
It was read among the stars-
Cosmic messages were sent endlessly reinterpreting it-
It appeared in Galactic anthologies
And whole Civilizations taught it in their schools-
Worlds were born with it and worlds lamented their dying with it-
It became the Text of the Text of the Text of the Text of the Text
Of cosmic intergalactic meaningfulness-
I wrote a poem across the Universe-
It was read for billions of years
And then somehow
No attention was paid to it anymore-
And it vanished for as long as forever can be understood to be.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall.
quote by William Rehnquist
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Falling Through Time
I can't answer the questions you ask me,
I don't know what to say.
The answers are somewhere lost in the stars
when the night has turned to day.
But I know if the silence of night could be here,
It would drift through my soul and calm all my fear
And I could reach out and draw you so near to me
Touch me and warm me and I will lie still.
And all that you ask me to give you I will
One living moment we'll have for our own.
A brief flash of time that we spent unalone.
But you ask me for nothing and give what you can
And we're wrapped in a pillow of sleep once again
And my memory drifts through the universe when we are one
Closely we're falling through time
And the earth will turn in the silence of space,
always in motion yet always in place
And all things will change yet remain what they are.
And far will be near and near will be far
And the ages will darken and blend into time
And all that is poetry will no longer rhyme
But our moment together is forever sublime
For the time has arrived when we must understand
That we're lost in a void on this sad speck of sand
And nobody knows where we are, no one cares
And the tears that we shed in the dark no one cares
And the madmen who plunder this world for their fame
Have forgotten that no one remembers their name
But time and the universe are always the same
Closely we're falling through time
song performed by by Don McLean
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
I was very strange back then. I could see I had problems. I would sit in a closet a lot of the time and not come out, or I would sit up on top of my desk, or under my desk, or do weird things like get my wisdom teeth out and bleed all over the hallways.
Tim Burton in Burton On Burton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
A Great Wonder
It is no wonder
the grand Universe
does not go asunder
which is so diverse
as a spider-web grand
made up of Galaxies billions
with many a connecting strand
of Stars trillions and trillions.
It is no wonder
when our complete Solar system
in its motion performs no blunder
with its Planets, and Sub-system
being a part of Milky Way
along with asteroids and comets.
All the components with precision play
from their appointed posits.
It is no wonder
the Earth revolving around the Sun.
Even when we ponder
the circles of the Sun's turn
to the centre of the galaxy
of stars in true radiancy.
It is a great wonder
and an exclusive mystery
as to how the kind human mind is a blender
of gore, and murder is the query!
poem by Chandra Thiagarajan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
They Say The Universe Will Expand So Fast
THEY SAY THE UNIVERSE WILL EXPAND SO FAST
They say the Universe will expand so fast
That no place will remain in touch with anyplace else
They say the universe will explode on itself
And leave us in another universe- parallel to this
They say the universe began so long ago
It has not begun
They say there is no universe- but a multiverse
They say the multiverse which we a part of
Has more than one tomorrow
And that where we are going
Is such a surprise
That we cannot possibly even begin to guess at it
They say the future
Is if not a miracle
Than a kind of Distant Dream so far from us
It cannot possibly connect to what we are and would be.
They say all all kinds of things
They don’t believe themselves.
They don’t know what to tell us
And we don’t know either
We live in our small space and time
And when our end comes
It will come
We pray to God
And don’t know if God will answer us in the end
But we pray
We hope
We don’t know for certain
Who and what we will become is unknown to us
But we pray God will save those we love
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!