Don't force it: get a bigger hammer.

When all else fails, read the instructions

Adding manpower to an overdue project makes it more overdue.

When backpacking, the remaining distance to your chosen campsite remains constant as darkness approaches.

Any sufficiently advanced technology remains indistinguishable from magic.

To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start.

In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.

Do not believe in miracles, rely on them.

1. You can't win

2. You can't even break even.

3. You can't quit the game.

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he will not be disappointed.

Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, exposure, volume, humidity, and all other variables, the film will do as it damn well pleases.

The first 90% of the task takes 90% of the time; the remaining 10% takes the other 90%.

You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. 

Anything that begins well ends badly; anything that begins badly ends worse.

Variables won't. Constants aren't.

The solution to a problem changes the problem.

It works better if you plug it in.

When working towards the solution of a problem, it helps if you know the answer.

The chief causes of the problems are solutions.

Build a system that any fool can use, and only a fool will use it.

Beauty may be only skin deep, but ugliness goes to the core.

An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on the grand fallacy.

IN ORDER TO GET A LOAN, YOU MUST FIRST PROVE THAT YOU DON'T NEED IT.

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Toothaches always start on Saturday night.

The person who can smile when things go wrong has thought of somebody else he can blame it on.

You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

IF IT JAMS, FORCE IT: IF IT BREAKS, IT NEEDED REPLACING ANYWAY.

There's never time to do it right, but there is always time to do it over.

Things get worse under pressure.

Any object will fall so as to do the most damage.

The first myth of management is that it exists.

The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank -- the REALLY big pieces rise to the top.

When your opponent is down, kick him.

Banal drivel tends to drive off the TV screen all ordinary drivel.

Any system that depends on human reliability is unreliable.

The weight of your back-pack increases in direct proportion to the amount of food you consume from it -- if you run out of food, the pack weight goes on increasing anyway.

The object or information most needed, will be the least available.

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't burn their bridges before they're hatched.

Teaching Resources by Ralph Putzker
Putzker Home Page

Website and Scans by Stephen Johnson. Please contact Stephen Johnson at sjphoto@aol.com for contributions of material.
Artwork Copyright ©2001 by Ralph Putzker. All Rights Reserved worldwide.
February 25, 2001