iisaw's Were-Spotting Guide

This Important Resource Contributed By: iisaw

This informative and necessary guide was lovingly crafted by iisaw, for the betterment of us all. And no, I won't tell you where he lives, just because yer pissed that you might resemble some of these remarks. Suck it up.

Loup-Guru

He claims to have all the answers. He will claim to be able to teach you to shift in exchange for your adoration (and sometimes other things... see: Wolfsbane)

Poserwolf

A kind of Troll, actually. A typical Poserwolf post is something like, "I woke up this morning with mud on my hands and feet and blood on my mouth. Three of my neighbors had been killed and partially eaten during the night. Should I be worried?"

MultiPolyWere

He can't make up his mind, so he adopts any animal he takes a fancy to, until his internal menagerie is larger than most petting zoos.

MyLittleWolfie

(MLW) He thinks wolves are sweet, dewy-eyed love puppies, and would faint if he ever saw blood. He likes to collect huge online "packs" of people he doesn't know, and his mental image of his wolf side has a heart-shaped tattoo on his butt.

Anklebiter

He snaps at everything and everyone. He mistakenly thinks his bitter tirades are witty. He will spew sophomoric insults at anyone who dares to do anything but totally agree with him. He doesn't understand why he doesn't have any RL friends.

Crusader

He has an axe the size of New Jersey to grind. Typified by "Kill the Hyoomans!" or "Kill the Vamps!" posts.

Joker

He never takes anything seriously. He can be a lot of fun until he mocks some heart-felt idea of yours... then you realize how irritating he is.

We'reWoof : Tea an' Pork Lips

"Pork Lips" for short, and "short" pretty well describes the life-cycle of this sub-species. He thinks that the WW:tA game is non-fiction. He can't figure out why nobody will take him seriously. He will bluster and threaten for a while until he gives up and retreats to his parent's basement to organize his Rage card collection.

WereDexter

He has one or more closely reasoned explanations why p-shifting is possible and will explain them at length... whether or not anyone wants to hear it. If you ignore scientific fact and logic, some of his theories will even sound plausible.

WannaWere

He is desperate to p-shift and will listen to anyone... no matter how ludicrous. He is typical prey for a Loup-Guru or Wolfsbane.

Wolfsbane

He is looking to cheat gullible shifters out of money or sex. Can be mistaken for a Loup-Guru. Typical Wolfsbane scams are; "Shifting Secrets" and "Werewolf Commune".

UltraÜberAlpha

He is usually condescending and rude. He will show up suddenly and start issuing orders to everyone with a ridiculous arrogance that is absent in true alphas. He will usually have "alpha" in his name along with other hairy-chested words such as "blood", "thunder", or "death". In RL he is short and has a tiny penis.

TantrumWolf

He never hears what he wants from others and never gets what he considers to enough attention. Frequently departs forums "forever" unless people beg him to stay. Will sometimes evolve into a Wearywolf.

Wearywolf

You can recognize this breed by the smell of burnt fur. Rarely seen, he will only post once or twice a year... usually something like, "I see everything here is just as screwed up as ever."

RPer

Actually a behavior pattern that is present in many other breeds. The typical Rper is making it up as he goes along... often found in Pork Lips, Wolfsbane, Poserwolf, Loup-Guru, and UltraÜberAlpha.

SuperWere

He claims that because of his wereside he has all sorts of "special powers"; higher metabolism and pain tolerance, hyper acute senses, incredible strength... that sort of thing. Regularly gets his super-butt kicked by school bullies.

Neuroticwolf

The hypochondriac of the shifter community, he will endlessly analyze and post his every experience in minute, tedious detail. He is terribly concerned about what percentage of his last mental-shift was actually astral... or etheric.

UnclearWere

He will explain how much power and wisdom his wolf spirit had given him and then complain about his parents grounding him for cutting school.

Shakeswere

He posts endless poems and stories, usually dripping with angst or gushing about how wonderful it is to be a shifter. Every once in a while one comes along who does really good work... not often enough, though.

Werewolf Hunter

Another type of Troll, he typically threatens to "kill all the werewolves". In reality, he would be hard put to wound a Chihuahua.

Beeches

As Kipling said, "The female of the species is more deadly than the male!" Boy was he right... A typical Beech will tear your butt off when you do something stupid, and then hand it back to you with a sewing kit. Yep, they're strong, dangerous, and don't take guff from anybody... but what're you gonna do? Wolves don't mate with sheep.

NobleWolf

Ever the Peacemaker, a Noble will try to keep discussions calm and positive, and goes to great lengths to see every side of every argument... no matter how many times the Flamers and Trolls turn a thread into a smoking ruin. Of course, nobody ever listens to him.

Dr. Were (AKA GrannyWere)

The good doctor has the cure for all your ailments. He feels it is his duty to fix everyone's problem... whether they want him to or not. Unfortunately not all his advice is sound.

TMIwere

(Too Much Information) He will post endless rambles about non-shifter related, personal trivia such as who he likes in Biology class, what he had for dinner, why he named his dog Bobo, and even less interesting junk. He is a very valuable resource for those in the were community who suffer from insomnia.

CluelessWolf

This shifter operates by some strange logic that is unknown on this planet. He will usually viciously disagree with anyone who makes an obvious joke and take harmless comments as a personal attack. Most other shifters won't argue with a CluelessWolf... not because they agree with him, but because they can't figure out what the heck he's talking about.

Ultimate Fanboy Shifter

Makes up for insecurity about possibly being a were (or not, they're insecure) by aquiring every conceivable were/shifter trivia tidbit, historical fact, movie, book, RPG, comic and collectable item imaginable. Can provide useful information, but they have a tendancy to get irritating after a while.

The Gap™ Wolf

Known for their focus on exterior issues. "I'm a werewolf because I kinda look like one and have a lot of hair." Frequently are known to wear t-shirts with their phenotype on them to "increase their awereness."

Quotes from "Normal" Humans

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
-- Herman Hesse

If you don't stand for something, you will fall for something.
-- Nguni Proverb

Paranoid people are harder to kill than regular people.
-- Kaff Tagon, in "Schlock Mercenary" by Howard Tayler

If I wanted to destroy a culture, I'd build a free-market system and give it television, and you'd be guaranteed everything would sink to the lowest common denominator. Fundamentally, TV exists to sell razor blades.
-- Peter Coyote

Everything I've heard from the American media is either information, misinformation or error,and I don't have the criteria to distinguish. I live my life like an espionage agent, putting together webs of probability.
-- Peter Coyote

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
-- Samuel Johnson

Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
-- John Locke

Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
-- Flannery O'Connor

True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.
-- Louis Nizer

The first man to see an illusion by which men have flourished for centuries surely stands in a lonely place.
-- Gary Zukav

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, then that of blindfolded fear.
-- Thomas Jefferson

You can out-distance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.
-- Rwandan Proverb

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
-- Noam Chomsky

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.
-- Lord Chesterfield

Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel.
-- H.L. Mencken

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
-- John F. Kennedy

If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.
-- Mahatma Gandhi

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-- Charles Darwin

A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.
-- Thomas Carlyle

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
-- Bertrand Russell

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
-- Will Rogers

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
-- Charles Darwin

Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven.
-- Edward De Bono

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
-- Susan B Anthony

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
-- Richard Francis Burton

All know that the drop merges into the ocean but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.
-- Kabir

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.
-- James Earl Jones

In the faces of men and women I see God.
-- Walt Whitman

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer.
-- Saadi

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
-- Albert Einstein

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
-- Galileo Galilei

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
-- Harper Lee

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
-- Dalai Lama

The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
-- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
-- Mark Twain

He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak.
-- Michel De Montaigne

If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable.
-- John F. Kennedy

No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical.
-- Niels Bohr

He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
-- Thomas Paine

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
-- Abraham Lincoln

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."
-- H.L.Mencken

We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us.
-- Mark Twain

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
-- Samuel Johnson

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
-- Samuel Johnson

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
-- Kahlil Gibran

Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.
-- Peter T. McIntyre

His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.
-- Lois McMaster Bujold

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
-- Albert Einstein

There are two kinds of fool. One says, “This is old, and therefore good.” And one says, “This is new, and therefore better.”
-- John Brunner

Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.
-- Arthur C Clarke

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.
-- Blaise Pascal

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
-- Confucius

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea , at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.
-- Saint Augustine

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

God has no religion.
-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
-- William Pitt

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
-- Johann von Goethe

The believer is happy; the doubter is wise.
-- Hungarian proverb

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
-- Josh Billings

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
-- Kahlil Gibran

Never be haughty to the humble; never be humble to the haughty.
-- Jefferson Davis

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.
-- Mark Twain

So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.
-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
-- Kahlil Gibran

If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.
-- John Bunyan

Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
-- Ambrose Bierce

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
-- Frank Lloyd Wright

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
-- Voltaire

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
-- William Butler Yeats

Never confuse motion with action.
-- Benjamin Franklin

War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.
-- Ambrose Bierce

Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides.
-- Rita Mae Brown

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
-- Carl Sandburg

It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than “try to be a little kinder.”
-- Aldous Huxley

Language is not neutral. It is not merely a vehicle which carries ideas. It is itself a shaper of ideas.
-- Dale Spender

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen, even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
-- Leonardo Da Vinci

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
-- Elie Wiesel

We are all born originals - why is it so many of us die copies?
-- Edward Young

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out - it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.
-- Robert Service

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
-- Louis Dembitz Brandeis

The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.
-- C. Northcote Parkinson

If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Every saint has a past and every sinner a future.
-- Oscar Wilde

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
-- Edith Wharton

To have doubted one’s own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
-- Blaise Pascal

We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom.
-- Michel Montaigne

If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it, they are wrong.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality: They discourse like angels but they live like men.
-- Samuel Johnson

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.
-- Friedrich W. Nietzsche

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.
-- Albert Schweitzer

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
-- Benjamin Franklin

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives—of approving of some and disapproving of others.
-- Charles Darwin

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
-- Anais Nin

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
-- Alice Walker

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
-- Thomas Carlyle

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Just remember-when you think all is lost, the future remains.
-- Bob Goddard

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who allows oppression, shares the crime.
-- Erasmus Darwin

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe.
-- Abraham Lincoln

The refusal to choose is a form of choice; disbelief is a form of belief.
-- Frank Barron

You will soon break the bow if you keep it always stretched.
-- Phaedrus

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
-- Henry David Thoreau

The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.
-- G.C. Lichtenberg

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
-- Mark Twain

The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterward.
-- Arthur Koestler

A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.
-- Johann Christoph Schiller

If words are to enter men’s minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men’s defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds.
-- J.B. Phillips

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire - then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.
-- Robert Fulghum

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
-- Bertrand Russell

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
-- Henry David Thoreau

To see things in the seed, that is genius.
-- Lao-tzu

Noise proves nothing—often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
-- Mark Twain

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
-- Plato

The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.
-- Marcus Aurelius

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
-- Ambrose Bierce

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
-- Voltaire

The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The more I study physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.
-- Albert Einstein

One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.
-- Stephen Hawking

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
-- William Somerset Maugham

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

No person of faith should be threatened by science, nor should science be subverted to serve one particular religious belief.
-- Beverly Friedenberg
(letters to the editor, TIME magazine, 9/5/2005)

Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice-if not whether, then how, they may endure.
-- Cazaril, in Lois McMaster Bujold's "The Curse of Chalion"

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo Galilei

If a man does his best, what else is there?
-- General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

The covers of this book are too far apart.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

After I am dead, I would rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
-- Cato the Elder (234-149 BC; AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)

Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even because he is right, but because he is human.
-- John Cogley Commonweal

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He removes the greatest ornament of friendship, who takes away from it respect.
-- Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

I did not go to his funeral, but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it.
--Mark Twain

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
-- James D. Nicoll

Nemo me impune lacessit.
(No-one provokes me without punishment)
-- Motto of the Montresors from "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
-- F. Kafka

...but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience...To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will.
-- C. S. Lewis

If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
--Catherine Aird

Difficulties show men what they are. In case of any difficulty God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil.
--Epictetus

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so many-where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
--Howard Zinn

Every normal man must be tempted at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
-- H.L. Mencken

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-- Robert A. Heinlein

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
-- Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

Shame is an improper emotion invented by pietists to oppress the human race.
-- Robert Preston, Toddy, "Victor/Victoria"

You don't expect governments to obey the law because of some higher moral development. You expect them to obey the law because they know that if they don't, those who aren't shot will be hanged.
--Michael Shirley

Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound
--unknown

I would prefer to live in a free society than a drug free society - even if the latter could actually be achieved.
-- unknown

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that's just ridiculous. It's as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it's for a reason. Among primitive people they say if someone was bitten by a snake he was murdered. I believe that.
-- William S. Burroughs

Burke's Postulates:
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.
Don't create a problem for which you do not have the answer

He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hopes for the human condition is a fool.
-- Albert Camus

To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.
-- Abraham Lincoln

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
-- Unknown

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
-- Albert Einstein

Every person, all the events in your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
-- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul

I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who are equally certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some respects, both. I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me.
--Abraham Lincoln

Never let someone who says it cannot be done interrupt the person who is doing it.
-- Unknown

If you can, help others. If you can't, at least don't hurt others.
-- the Dalai Lama

Mater artium necessitas.
[Necessity is the mother of invention].
-- Unknown

My right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
-- Thomas Jefferson

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
-- Ambrose Bierce

Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how much good it did them.
-- Unknown

Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.
-- Unknown

Dear Lord: Please make my words sweet and tender, for tomorrow I may have to eat them.
-- Unknown

A ship, berthed at harbor, will never hit the rocks, will never wash up on reefs, will never be sunk or lost in bad weather. But that's not what a ship is for.
-- J. Michael Straczynski

The human race never solves any of its problems. It merely outlives them.
-- David Gerrold

"Everywhere on earth there are people of our kind. That for a small part of them, I can be a focal point, the nodal point in the net, is the burden and the joy of my life." (private letter, 1955)
-- Hermann Hesse

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
--Unknown

You don't stop laughing because you grow old; You grow old because you stop laughing.
--Michael Pritchard

Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice Doggie" while you look for a big rock.
-- Unknown

Nosce te Ipsum (Know thyself)
-- Unknown

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the Masters; seek what they sought.
-- Zen proverb

Violence stinks, no matter which end of it you're on. But now and then there's nothing left to do but hit the other person over the head with a frying pan. Sometimes people are just begging for that frypan, and if we weaken for a moment and honor their request, we should regard it as impulsive philanthropy, which we aren't in any position to afford, but shouldn't regret it too loudly lest we spoil the purity of the deed.
-- Tom Robbins

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature cannot be fooled.
-- R.P. Feynman

What you do is of little significance. But it is very important that you do it.
-- Mahatma Gandhi

Never doubt that a small group of thoughful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
-- Margaret Mead

Quotes from Therianthropes

Were Quotes

Clever things therianthropes have said.

Courtesy is owed. Love is given. Respect is earned.
-- Vladwolf (My favorite quote by anyone ever)

Just because we do not know the truth does not mean there is no truth.
-- Coyote

If a thing is true, it is true regardless of who said it.
-- Coyote

The small victories lead to bigger things, the big victories usually result in massive casualties.
-- Maskedwulf

In the days of old there were stupid people. Because they were stupid the dinosaurs would catch and eat them. And all was good. Then one day the smart people took pity on the stupid people and protected them from the dinosaurs. Now there are stupid people everywhere. In the store, at school, maybe even at home. Wish I could find some dinosaurs.
-- Wolf
(Unsure if this person made this up or relayed it from elsewhere.)

Elders should be there as a resource, not as a ruling body. I don't know how to get people to see 'em as such, except perhaps simply by being seen to be right more often that not...
-- Tirran

The alpha wolves in a pack are the wolves that are responsible for the well being of the pack. While they are certainly the most assertive and often the most powerful members of the pack, their position is earned by actions not by "talk".
-- Wolf eyes

Bad Jesus, No Second Coming!
--Wind King

Quotes by Yours Truly
(It's my website, and I can toot my horn if I want to! All of these are things that people besides me seemed to think were clever though.. I ALWAYS think I'm clever, after all)

Think before you leap, but leap before you fall.
-- Me

Instead of signs that say "Do not attempt to exit while train is in motion" there should be signs that say "Go ahead, jump off if you're that much of a stupid asshole".
-- Me

Okay... I admit... I'm not the swiftest crayon in the cutlery drawer (though I sure can mix a metaphor).
-- Me

Regarding the debate over teaching "Intelligent Design"

TIME Magazine ran a piece about the debate over teaching "intelligent design" alongside the theory of evolution in science class. I saw something in the Letter's column the following issue that really struck me.

This is the best quote I've heard yet on the subject:

"No person of faith should be threatened by science, nor should science be subverted to serve one particular religious belief."
-- Beverly Friedenberg
(letters to the editor, TIME magazine, 9/5/2005)