Wikiquote:Quote of the day/April

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Today is Monday, November 30, 2009; it is now 18:05 (UTC)


March << April 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 >> May

This page lists quote of the day proposals specifically for dates in the month of April, and quotes proposed should ideally have some relation to the day, or persons born on it, though sometimes exceptions can be made, usually for notable quotes that relate to recent events, such as the death of prominent individuals. Developing ideas of people or works to quote on specific days can be explored through the Wikipedia page: List of historical anniversaries. The numeric section heading of each date is also a direct link to the Wikipedia list of births, deaths, and other events which occured on that date.

See also: April 2008 - April 2009

Ranking system:

4 : Excellent - should definitely be used.
3 : Very Good - strong desire to see it used.
2 : Good - some desire to see it used.
1 : Acceptable - but with no particular desire to see it used.
0 : Not acceptable - not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
2004
Years ago my mother used to say to me... "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh-so-smart, or oh-so-pleasant." Well, for years I was smart — I recommend pleasant. You may quote me. ~ Jimmy Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd in the film Harvey
2005
When you want to fool the world, tell the truth. ~ Otto von Bismarck (born 1 April 1815, and All Fools Day)
2006
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. ~ Mark Twain (All Fool's Day/April Fool's Day)
2007
Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. ~ Alexander Pope
2008
What is unique about the "I" hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual "I" is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered. ~ Milan Kundera (born 1 April 1929)
2009
Very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth. ~ William Harvey (born 1 April 1578)
2010

Quotes by people born this day already used as QOTD:

  • I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me. All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. ~ Wangari Maathai

[edit] Suggestions

Were I, who to my Cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious Creatures Man,
A Spirit free, to choose for my own Share,
What sort of Flesh and Blood I pleas’d to wear,
I’d be a Dog, a Monkey, or a Bear,
Or any thing, but that vain Animal,
Who is so proud of being Rational.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (born April 1, 1647)

Whilst the misguided Follower climbs with Pain,
Mountains of Whimsies, heapt in his own Brain,
Stumbling from Thought to Thought, falls headlong down
Into Doubt’s boundless Sea, where like to drown,
Books bear him up a-while, and make him try
To swim with Bladders of Philosophy.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

For Wits are treated just like Common Whores;
First they're enjoy'd, and then kickt out of Doors.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and thus the novelists' discoveries, however old they may be, will never cease to astonish. ~ Milan Kundera

  • 3 InvisibleSun 08:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 20:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC) I have a strong tendency to prefer strong links to "All Fool's Day" on this date, but lean toward a 4 for this one despite this.
  • 1 Zarbon 23:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are retouched and biographies and histories rewritten. ~ Milan Kundera

There's not a thing on earth that I can name,
So foolish, and so false, as common fame.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester ~

It is a good world to live in,
To lend, or to spend, or to give in;
But to beg or to borrow, or to get a man's own,
It is the very worst world that ever was known.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester ~

Great Negative, how vainly would the Wise
Enquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise,
Didst thou not stand to point their dull Philosophies?

Is, or is not, the Two great Ends of Fate,
And, true or false, the Subject of Debate,
That perfect, or destroy, the vast Designs of Fate.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester ~

Man differs more from Man, than Man from Beast. ~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

  • 3 Kalki 20:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 because this is one of my alltime favorites. The man and beast comparison is an excellent one, one of sheer brilliance. Zarbon 23:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches. ~ Milan Kundera

Is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about? ~ Milan Kundera

Chance and chance alone has a message for us... Only chance can speak to us. ~ Milan Kundera

Love is our freedom. ~ Milan Kundera

I avow myself the partisan of truth alone. ~ William Harvey

  • 3 Kalki 20:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been to Sugartown/I shook the Sugar down/Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door. ~ Bob Dylan

—This unsigned comment is by 24.125.163.3 (talk • contribs) .
  • 0 Zarbon 23:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
  • 0. What is the relevance to this date? - InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided — but by iron and blood. ~ Otto von Bismarck

  • 3 Zarbon 13:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3, but an ellipsis should be used rather than a dash.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The wolf cannot help it that he was created by God the way he is, but one shoots him yet, if one can. ~ Otto von Bismarck

  • 3 Zarbon 13:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence. ~ Otto von Bismarck

  • 3 Zarbon 13:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. ~ Otto von Bismarck

  • 2 Zarbon 13:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

They treat me like a fox, a cunning fellow of the first rank. But the truth is that with a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to deal with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half. ~ Otto von Bismarck

  • 3 Zarbon 13:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC) (for this or one of the other variant translations of this)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches. ~ Otto von Bismarck

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 13:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known. ~ William Harvey

  • 3 Kalki 17:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 19:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Politics is not an exact science. ~ Otto von Bismarck

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. ~ Abraham Maslow

Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose. ~ Abraham Maslow

I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone. ~ Nikolai Gogol

  • 3 Kalki 01:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever? ~ Daniel Daly

What I look for in a friend is someone who's different from me. The more different the person is, the more I'll learn from him. The more he'll come up with surprising takes on ideas and things and situations. ~ Samuel R. Delany

Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind. ~ Samuel R. Delany

  • 3 Kalki 02:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Business is globalizing so fast that it has led to the often quoted ‘clash of civilizations’. People simply have not had time to get to know and understand people of other cultures sufficiently to live and work in harmony. ~ Begum Aga Khan

It is at night that faith in light is admirable. ~ Edmond Rostand

What say you? It is useless? Ay, I know
But who fights ever hoping for success?
I fought for lost cause, and for fruitless quest!
You there, who are you! — You are thousands! Ah!
I know you now, old enemies of mine!
Falsehood!
Have at you! Ha! and Compromise!
Prejudice, Treachery! ...
Surrender, I?
Parley? No, never! You too, Folly, — you?
I know that you will lay me low at last;
Let be! Yet I fall fighting, fighting still!
~ Edmond Rostand

You strip from me the laurel and the rose!
Take all! Despite you there is yet one thing
I hold against you all, and when, tonight,
I enter Christ's fair courts, and, lowly bowed,
Sweep with doffed casque the heavens' threshold blue,
One thing is left, that, void of stain or smutch,
I bear away despite you ... My panache.
~ Edmond Rostand

Instinct is the direct connection with truth. ~ Laurette Taylor

Personality is more important than beauty, but imagination is more important than both of them. ~ Laurette Taylor

Twas Beauty that killed the beast! ~ Edgar Wallace

I present you with a Key. ~ Roger Williams

The God of Peace, the God of Truth will shortly seal this truth, and confirm this witness, and make it evident to the whole world, that the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience, is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace. ~ Roger Williams

I have read ... the last will and testament of the Lord Jesus over many times, and yet I cannot find by one tittle of that testament that if He had been pleased to have accepted of a temporal crown and government that ever He would have put forth the least finger of temporal or civil power in the matters of His spiritual affairs and Kingdom. ~ Roger Williams

  • 3 Kalki 02:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Enforced uniformity confounds civil and religious liberty and denies the principles of Christianity and civility. No man shall be required to worship or maintain a worship against his will. ~ Roger Williams

  • 3 Kalki 02:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Only the foolish learn from experience - the wise learn from the experience of others. ~ Rolf Hochhuth

It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry. ~ Nikolai Gogol

We have a special responsibility to the ecosystem of this planet. In making sure that other species survive we will be ensuring the survival of our own. ~ Wangari Maathai

  • 2 Zarbon 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 06:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. It must be this voice that is telling me to do something, and I am sure it's the same voice that is speaking to everybody on this planet — at least everybody who seems to be concerned about the fate of the world, the fate of this planet. ~ Wangari Maathai

  • 2 Zarbon 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 06:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC) Though part of this was already used.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The people are starving. They need food; they need medicine; they need education. They do not need a skyscraper to house the ruling party and a 24-hour TV station. ~ Wangari Maathai

Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking. ~ Wangari Maathai

To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero. ~ Edmond Rostand

  • 4 Zarbon 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 06:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC) I would probably rank this a 3, or even a 4 eventually, but have a much stronger inclination to use "I avow myself the partisan of truth alone." by William Harvey for this year.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. ~ Abraham Maslow

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 06:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


2004
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on. ~ Robert Frost
2005
To be an artist is a blessing and a privilege. Artists must never betray their true hearts. Artists must look beneath the surface and show that there is more to this world than what meets the eye. ~ Marvin Gaye (born 2 April 1939)
2006
Whether it is happy or unhappy, a man's life is the only treasure he can ever possess. ~ Giacomo Casanova (born 2 April 1725)
2007
How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself. ~ Kenneth Tynan
2008
Forgiveness is the offspring of a feeling of heroism, of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness, and still oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness. Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom. ~ Giacomo Casanova
2009
Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. ~ Émile Zola (born 2 April 1840)
2010

[edit] Suggestions

All writing is an antisocial act, since the writer is a man who can speak freely only when alone; to be himself he must lock himself up, to communicate he must cut himself off from all communication; and in this there is something always a little mad. ~ Kenneth Tynan (born 2 April 1927)

The man who reacts to the universe with a cry of impotent anguish is acceptable as an artist only if he can persuade us that he has sanely considered the other possible reactions and found them inadequate. ~ Kenneth Tynan

We shall be judged by what we do, not by how we felt while we were doing it. ~ Kenneth Tynan

You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate.

You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today.
~ Marvin Gaye ~ (born 2 April 1939)

Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it. ~ Joan Vinge (born April 2)

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 06:31, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Source: "What's Your Mood?: A Good Day, Bad Day, In-between Day Book" - by Kimberly Potts - Psychology - 2005
  • 1 Kalki 02:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC) Indifference is not a force at all — it is the base out of which Life and all Love and Hate emerge, and with Love ultimately the victor in all that endures with Life. ~ Kalki 02:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Human life began in flight and fear. Religion rose from rituals of propitiation, spells to lull the punishing elements. ~ Camille Paglia

  • 2 Zarbon 05:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 06:44, 31 March 2009 (UTC) I might rank this a 2 or more with some context, but it doesn't seem to have much of a point as it stands.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one. ~ Eligius Franz Joseph von Münch-Bellinghausen

I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a free agent. ~ Giacomo Casanova

Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion. The man who has sufficient power over himself to wait until his nature has recovered its even balance is the truly wise man, but such beings are seldom met with. ~ Giacomo Casanova

My success and my misfortunes, the bright and the dark days I have gone through, everything has proved to me that in this world, either physical or moral, good comes out of evil just as well as evil comes out of good. ~ Giacomo Casanova

My errors will point to thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it. It is only necessary to have courage, for strength without self-confidence is useless. ~ Giacomo Casanova

  • 3 Zarbon 05:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 06:44, 31 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The man who forgets does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance of the harm inflicted on him; forgiveness is the offspring of a feeling of heroism, of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness, and still oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness. Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom. ~ Giacomo Casanova

  • 3 Zarbon 05:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 06:44, 31 March 2009 (UTC) (most of this was used last year, otherwise I would rank it higher.)

Man is free, but his freedom ceases when he has no faith in it. ~ Giacomo Casanova

OR

Man is free; but not unless he believes he is ~ Giacomo Casanova

  • 2 for both versions. Zarbon 05:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 06:44, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

When you fool a fool, you strike a blow for intelligence. ~ Giacomo Casanova

OR

We avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and the victory is worth the trouble. ~ Giacomo Casanova

OR

We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised. ~ Giacomo Casanova

  • 3 for all versions. Zarbon 05:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 06:44, 31 March 2009 (UTC) for either the first or last translations, with a lean toward 3 for the first.
  • 2 for the second and third versions. - InvisibleSun 22:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Eternity is here (in the stable at Bethlehem and on the cross of Calvary) in time. ~ Karl Barth

  • 3 Kalki 23:08, 9 May 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4. (Good Friday 2010, in both Western and Eastern Orthodox calculations)

My spirit to yours dear brother,
Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you,
I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also,
That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession,
We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted,
We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.
~ Walt Whitman in "To Him Who Was Crucified" in Leaves of Grass
(for Good Friday 2010, in both Western and Eastern Orthodox calculations)

  • 4 Kalki 01:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


2004
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they might have been. ~ William Hazlitt
2005
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece. ~ Pope John Paul II (recent death)
2006
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in travelling in a stage-coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place. ~ Washington Irving (born 13 April 1783)
2007
There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature. ~ Washington Irving
2008
Stretch or contract me, Thy poor debtor;
This is but tuning of my breast,
To make the music better.

Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust,
Thy hands made both, and I am there;
Thy power and love, my love and trust
Make one place ev'rywhere.
~ George Herbert ~

2009
If you have accomplished all that you have planned for yourself, you have not planned enough. ~ Edward Everett Hale

[edit] Suggestions

Be calm in arguing: for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
~ George Herbert (born April 3, 1593)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 12:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 23:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Man is no star, but a quick coal

Of mortal fire:

Who blows it not, nor doth control

A faint desire,

Lets his own ashes choke his soul.~ George Herbert

And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write;

I once more smell the dew and rain,

And relish versing: O my only light,

It cannot be
That I am he
On whom thy tempests fell all night.~ George Herbert

For want of a nail the shoe is lost, for want of a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a horse the rider is lost. ~ George Herbert

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 12:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC) (with a strong lean toward a 4, but might do more sourcing of variants of this, including the famous one of Franklin's today, or sometime soon...)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Show me a liar, and I'll show thee a thief. ~ George Herbert

A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use. ~ Washington Irving (born April 3, 1783)

A verse may find him, who a sermon flies. ~ George Herbert

Love your neighbor, yet pull not down your hedge. ~ George Herbert

  • 3 Kalki 12:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

One sword keeps another in the sheath. ~ George Herbert

  • 3 Kalki 12:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 because this is true. Through the usage of one's own force and power, one keeps another from raising his sword. Very beautiful ideological perspective. Zarbon 23:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

None knows the weight of another's burden. ~ George Herbert

  • 3 Kalki 12:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 because one understands one's own suffering better than all others. Zarbon 23:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

How convenient it would be to many of our great men and great families of doubtful origin, could they have the privilege of the heroes of yore, who, whenever their origin was involved in obscurity, modestly announced themselves descended from a god. ~ Washington Irving

There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted. ~ Washington Irving

  • 4 Kalki 02:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC) * 3 Kalki 12:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those devils there had got hold of her to-day. ~ Edward Everett Hale

To look up and not down,
To look forward and not back,
To look out and not in, and
To lend a hand. ~
Edward Everett Hale

I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
~ Edward Everett Hale

In the name of Hypocrites, doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival. ~ Edward Everett Hale

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three — all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have. ~ Edward Everett Hale

  • 3 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.

The visionaries of yesterday are the realists of today. ~ Helmut Kohl

He who approves family, must also approve the woman. ~ Helmut Kohl

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating. ~ Boss Tweed

  • 3 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures. ~ Boss Tweed

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The way to have power is to take it. ~ Boss Tweed

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The world can't spend its life looking over its shoulder and nursing hatreds. There would be no progress that way. ~ Marlon Brando

I suppose the story of my life is a search for love, but more than that, I have been looking for a way to repair myself from the damages I suffered early on and to define my obligation, if I had any, to myself and my species. ~ Marlon Brando

When I lie on the beach there naked, which I do sometimes, and I feel the wind coming over me and I see the stars up above and I am looking into this very deep, indescribable night, it is something that escapes my vocabulary to describe. Then I think: 'God, I have no importance. Whatever I do or don't do, or what anybody does, is not more important than the grains of sand that I am lying on, or the coconut that I am using for my pillow.' ~ Marlon Brando

Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite. ~ Marlon Brando

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, no person who believes that wars between classes and nations are inevitable is fit to be in charge of the destiny of children. To believe in the unity of the human race and get children to believe it in early youth would mean the creation of that unity and the end of war. ~ Dora Russell

We want better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them. ~ Dora Russell

We do not want our world to perish. But in our quest for knowledge, century by century, we have placed all our trust in a cold, impartial intellect which only brings us nearer to destruction. We have heeded no wisdom offering guidance. Only by learning to love one another can our world be saved. Only love can conquer all. ~ Dora Russell

Humanity will ever seek but never attain perfection. Let us at least survive and go on trying. ~ Dora Russell

  • 3 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The greatest danger to our future is apathy. ~ Jane Goodall

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

That I did not fail was due in part to patience... ~ Jane Goodall

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves. ~ Jane Goodall

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is all right, as long your values don't change. ~ Jane Goodall

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right. ~ Jane Goodall

  • 3 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I do not want to discuss evolution in such depth, however, only touch on it from my own perspective: from the moment when I stood on the Serengeti plains holding the fossilized bones of ancient creatures in my hands to the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back. You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves. ~ Jane Goodall

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC) but only for a trimmed version beginning at "You may not believe in evolution..."

Anyone who tries to improve the lives of animals invariably comes in for criticism from those who believe such efforts are misplaced in a world of suffering humanity. ~ Jane Goodall

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The most important thing is to actually think about what you do. To become aware and actually think about the effect of what you do on the environment and on society. That's key, and that underlies everything else. ~ Jane Goodall

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The US is not a superpower. The US is a financially dependent country that foreign lenders can close down at will. Washington still hasn't learned this. American hubris can lead the administration and Congress into a bailout solution that the rest of the world, which has to finance it, might not accept. ~ Paul Craig Roberts

The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it. ~ Doris Day

Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty. ~ Doris Day

  • 2 Zarbon 19:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC) This seems to be Day quoting a hymn.

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see
And what I do in any thing,
To do it as for thee.
~ George Herbert ~

  • 3 Kalki 11:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 14:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:17, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
Where there is great love there are always miracles. ~ Willa Cather
2005
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth...
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
~ Maya Angelou (born 4 April 1928)
2006
There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory. ~ Sir Francis Drake (knighted 4 April 1581)
2007
He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
~ Aeschylus ~ (Quoted, in variant form, by Robert F. Kennedy in a speech, 4 April 1968, after learning of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., which occurred that day.)
2008
2009
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men. ~ Black Elk
2010

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

  • There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. ~ Maya Angelou
  • You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. ~ Maya Angelou

Also for this day have been included suggestions focusing on the theme of Peace, made to commemorate the first public use of what became the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo, and later one of the most recognized of the "Peace symbols" in a march by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, 4 April 1958.)

[edit] Suggestions

A military man can scarcely pride himself on having "smitten a sleeping enemy"; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack. ~ Isoroku Yamamoto (born April 4)

  • 3 because it is better to face your enemy head on rather than strike them behind their back. Beautiful quotation. Zarbon 05:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I must have the gentleman to haul and draw with the mariner, and the mariner with the gentleman. What! let us show ourselves to be of a company and let us not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice at our decay and overthrow. ~ Sir Francis Drake

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. ~ Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
~ Maya Angelou ~

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
~ Maya Angelou ~

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel.
~ Maya Angelou ~

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace. ~ Andre Gide

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 although I personally don't think it's "easy" to stir a man's passion for combat. That is a gift in and of itself. A true military tactician would never admit to that as it takes much coordination and practice to convince men to fight with honor. Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. ~ Baruch Spinoza

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. ~ Moshe Dayan

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 but relation to date? Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace. ~ William Gladstone

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 2 but relation to date? Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. ~ Isaiah, II:4

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward an eventual 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The goal toward which all history tends is peace, not peace through the medium of war, not peace through a process of universal intimidation, not peace through a program of mutual impoverishment, not peace by any means that leaves the world too weak or too frightened to go on fighting, but peace pure and simple based on that will to peace which has animated the overwhelming majority of mankind through countless ages. This will to peace does not arise out of a cowardly desire to preserve one's life and property, but out of conviction that the fullest development of the highest powers of men can be achieved only in a world of peace. ~ Robert Maynard Hutchins

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings. ~ John F. Kennedy with a strong lean toward 4.

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world. ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 but relation to date? Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

In the hearts of people today there is a deep longing for peace. When the true spirit of peace is thoroughly dominant, it becomes an inner experience with unlimited possibilities. Only when this really happens — when the spirit of peace awakens and takes possession of men's hearts, can humanity be saved from perishing. ~ Albert Schweitzer

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC) Peace quote and date of death.
  • 1 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but on the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow, we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race, which no one can win, to a positive contest to harness humanity's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race. If we have a will — and determination — to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • 3 Kalki 04:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4, as a Peace quote and date of death.
  • 1 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear. ~ Isidore of Seville

And without music there can be no perfect knowledge, for there is nothing without it. For even the universe itself is said to have been put together with a certain harmony of sounds, and the very heavens revolve under the guidance of harmony. ~ Isidore of Seville

  • 2 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC) but I would trim off the initial "And"
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most. ~ Marguerite Duras

Accordingly, death is a harbor of peace for the just, but is believed a shipwreck for the wicked. ~ Ambrose

  • 2 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 08:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC) but would trim off "Accordingly"
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It is not death therefore that is burdensome, but the fear of death. ~ Ambrose

  • 4 Zarbon 03:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 08:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 2 (death remains burdensome, though fear of death can be more so.)
    • But that's exactly what the quote is saying. It's saying that fear of death is oftentimes worse than death itself. - Zarbon 22:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
The statement as phrased states "it is not" burdensome — but I don't accept that this is the case for death any more than it is for ignorance or confusion, no matter how little fear one might have of either them or of death. ~ Kalki 23:58, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Mathematics is the science which draws necessary conclusions. ~ Benjamin Peirce (born 4 April 1809)

  • 3 Kalki 11:07, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

What is man? ... a strange union of matter and mind! A machine for converting material into spiritual force. ~ Benjamin Peirce (born 4 April 1809)

  • 3 Kalki 11:07, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
Life is too deep for words, so don't try to describe it, just live it. ~ C.S. Lewis
2005
Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools. ~ Thomas Hobbes (born 5 April 1588)
2006
Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thy selfe. ~ Thomas Hobbes (born 5 April 1588)
2007
The world is fast learning that of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him. ~ Booker T. Washington (born 5 April 1856)
2008
I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak. ~ Booker T. Washington
2009
God's own hand
Holds fast all issues of our deeds: with him
The end of all our ends is, but with us
Our ends are, just or unjust: though our works
Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this
At least is ours, to make them righteous.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne ~
2010

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

[edit] Suggestions

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. ~ Booker T. Washington (born April 5, 1856)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 17:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 12:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC) I would rank this higher, but a variant of this has already been used.
  • 2 because hatred would make one transform into the thing he avoids to become. To hate is to be the same as the hated. Zarbon 23:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists. ~ Booker T. Washington

My whole life has largely been one of surprises. I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life — that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living. ~ Booker T. Washington

  • 3 Kalki 12:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 13:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. ~ Thomas Hobbes

In the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power, but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. ~ Thomas Hobbes

  • 2 Kalki 20:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC) 3 Kalki 12:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC) though this remains largely true, there are other quotes which have been suggested which I strongly prefer, and have a very strong preference for a remark by Swinburne I have added today. If this one were to be used, I would also prefer to trim "In the first place" as unnecessary and referential to prior unquoted comments. ~ Kalki 20:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 4 InvisibleSun 13:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 23:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Man gives indifferent names to one and the same thing from the difference of their own passions; as they that approve a private opinion call it opinion; but they that mislike it, heresy: and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion. ~ Thomas Hobbes

  • 3 Kalki 12:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 13:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Such truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most. ~ Colin Powell (born April 5)

  • 3 because everyone can attack, but it takes a man of high caliber to restrain oneself. Zarbon 17:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 04:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC) (but this is a quote of Thucydides which Powell used, and should be noted as such — and thus I am inclined to rank at 3 if properly cited.)
  • 2 if credited to Thucydides. - InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude. ~ Colin Powell (born April 5)

  • 3 because this is a principle to live by. Zarbon 17:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 04:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible. ~ Colin Powell (born April 5)

Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood. ~ Booker T. Washington

  • 3 because once mankind is growing, laws cannot repress knowledge. Zarbon 04:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 04:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Character, not circumstances, makes the man. ~ Booker T. Washington

  • 3 because everyone can be placed under the same circumstances...but sometimes, it is the man's character that differentiates him from others. Zarbon 04:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 04:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears,
Grief with a glass that ran,
Pleasure with pain for leaven,
Summer with flowers that fell,
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And Madness risen from hell,
Strength without hands to smite,
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

  • 2 Zarbon 04:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pasture or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Forget that I remember
And dream that I forget.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

  • 3 Zarbon 04:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC) needs more context.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Dream that the lips once breathless
Might quicken if they would;
Say that the soul is deathless;
Dream that the gods are good;
Say March may wed September,
And time divorce regret;
But not that you remember,
And not that I forget.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

At the door of life by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

  • 4 Zarbon 04:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC) though a clear cognizance of mortality is desirable, to dwell too much upon death and the things worse than it are one of the things that worsen life, and diminish the levels and forms of joy one can focus upon developing.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

For in the days we know not of
Did fate begin
Weaving the web of days that wove
Your doom.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

  • 3 Zarbon 04:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC) (but would trim the first word, as there really isn't much context here, without the preceding stanza of the poem "Faustine" and the final words of this one.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I remember the way we parted,
The day and the way we met;
You hoped we were both broken-hearted
And knew we should both forget.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

And the best and the worst of this is
That neither is most to blame,
If you have forgotten my kisses
And I have forgotten your name.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron,
Shall a nation be moulded at last.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Fear that makes faith may break faith. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

  • 3 and lean toward 4. Zarbon 04:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC) but only if extended to read:
Fear that makes faith may break faith; and a fool Is but in folly stable.
  • 3 for the extended quote. - InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter. ~ Thomas Hobbes

To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. ~ Thomas Hobbes

  • 3 Zarbon 04:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC) the full context is not provided by this, but I could rank it a 3 or 4 eventually if extended to read:
Though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another, yet in all times kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators, having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms, and continual spies upon their neighbours, which is a posture of war. But because they uphold thereby the industry of their subjects, there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of particular men.
To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.
  • 3 for either form of the quote. - InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. ~ Thomas Hobbes

  • 3 Zarbon 04:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC) there is too little context within this and the previous quote to provide clear and proper sense of what Hobbes was actually saying, and I would prefer to extend this considerably to indicate more of that, and in extended form I could rank it a 3 or a 4:
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
  • 3 for the extended quote. - InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. ~ Thomas Hobbes

War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace. ~ Thomas Hobbes

  • 3 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 with a lean toward 2. Zarbon 18:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The passions that incline men to peace are: fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles are they which otherwise are called the laws of nature... ~ Thomas Hobbes

  • 3 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 18:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

To promise that which is known to be impossible is no covenant. But if that prove impossible afterwards, which before was thought possible, the covenant is valid and bindeth, though not to the thing itself, yet to the value; or, if that also be impossible, to the unfeigned endeavour of performing as much as is possible, for to more no man can be obliged.
Men are freed of their covenants two ways; by performing, or by being forgiven. For performance is the natural end of obligation, and forgiveness the restitution of liberty, as being a retransferring of that right in which the obligation consisted. ~ Thomas Hobbes

  • 3 Kalki 15:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 18:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Not from without us, only from within,
Comes or can ever come upon us light
Whereby the soul keeps ever truth in sight.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne ~

Being come to flood and fullness now, the tide
Is risen in mine as in the sea's own heart
To tempest and to triumph. Not for nought
Am I that wild wife's bridegroom — old and hoar,
Not sapless yet nor soulless.
~ Algernon Charles Swinburne


2004
There is no sincerer love than the love of food. ~ George Bernard Shaw
2005
See, I write jokes for a living, man. I sit in my hotel at night and think of something that's funny and then I go get a pen and write 'em down. Or, if the pen's too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny. ~ Mitch Hedberg (recent death)
2006
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. ~ Isaac Asimov (died 6 April 1992)
2007
I am less concerned with expressing the motions of the soul and mind than to render visible, so to speak, the inner flashes of intuition which have something divine in their apparent insignificance and reveal magic, even divine horizons, when they are transposed into the marvellous effects of pure plastic art. ~ Gustave Moreau
2008
I have never looked for dream in reality or reality in dream. I have allowed my imagination free play, and I have not been led astray by it. ~ Gustave Moreau
2009
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Make our pleasant earth below
Like the heaven above.

~ Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney ~

2010

[edit] Suggestions

No one could have less faith in the absolute and definitive importance of the work created by man, because I believe that this world is nothing but a dream... ~ Gustave Moreau

I believe neither in what I touch nor what I see. I only believe in what I do not see, and solely in what I feel. ~ Gustave Moreau

  • 3 because this quote makes one think. If all the physical and sight apparent is an illusion, it's quite frankly a nice parallel illusion drawn here by Moreau. Zarbon 16:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 02:01, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.

Thus the little minutes,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.
~ Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney ~

If we don't play God, who will? ~ James D. Watson

  • 3 Zarbon 00:37, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 02:01, 5 April 2009 (UTC) there is ambiguity and significance here beyond his intentions.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

If nature had produced spontaneously all the objects which we desire, and in sufficient abundance for the desires of all, there would have been no source of dispute or of injury among men; nor would any man have possessed the means of ever acquiring authority over another. ~ James Mill

Whenever the powers of government are placed in any hands other than those of the community, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply that government is at all necessary, imply that those persons will make use of them to defeat the very end for which government exists. ~ James Mill


2004
The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of hell. ~ Saint Augustine
2005
Out of the struggle at the center has come an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are, and what this life is for. At the center humankind struggles with collective powers for its freedom, the individual struggles with dehumanization for the possession of his soul. ~ Saul Bellow (recent death)
2006
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
~ William Wordsworth (born 7 April 1770)
2007
In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs — in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time. ~ William Wordsworth
2008
I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if you believe yourself. ~ Charlton Heston (recent death)
2009
Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves. ~ William Ellery Channing (born 7 April 1780)
2010

[edit] Suggestions

This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
~ William Wordsworth (born April 7, 1770)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) But only if prefixed to begin with :
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there not
An art, a music, and a stream of words
That shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?
~ William Wordsworth

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
~ William Wordsworth

Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished. ~ William Wordsworth

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
~ William Wordsworth

Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour.
~ William Wordsworth

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) but would extend it :
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; — be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Ningauble 16:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC) for the extended quote.

Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science. ~ William Wordsworth

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society.
~ William Wordsworth

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be.
~ William Wordsworth

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC) 3 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a very strong lean towards a 4
  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 4 Ningauble 16:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC) I would prefer to skip first two lines

Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own.
~ Billie Holiday (born April 7, 1915) and Arthur Herzog, Jr.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
~ William Wordsworth ~

  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean towards a 4
  • 3 InvisibleSun 17:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Ningauble 16:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar...
~ William Wordsworth ~

  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean towards a 4
  • 3 InvisibleSun 17:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great, is passed away.
~ William Wordsworth ~

  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean towards a 4
  • 3 InvisibleSun 17:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2.5 Ningauble 16:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
~ William Wordsworth ~

  • 3 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC) * 4 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with very strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 17:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. ~ William Ellery Channing

War is to be ranked among the most dreadful calamities which fall on a guilty world; and, what deserves consideration, it tends to multiply and perpetuate itself without end. It feeds and grows on the blood which it sheds. The passions, from which it springs, gain strength and fury from indulgence. ~ William Ellery Channing

Another powerful principle of our nature, which is the spring of war, is the passion for superiority, for triumph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impatient of inferiority, and eager for preeminence and control. ~ William Ellery Channing

We need not war to awaken human energy. There is at least equal scope for courage and magnanimity in blessing, as in destroying mankind. The condition of the human race offers inexhaustible objects for enterprise, and fortitude, and magnanimity. ~ William Ellery Channing

  • 2 Zarbon 01:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost. ~ William Ellery Channing

  • 2 Zarbon 01:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is overeager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure. ~ William Ellery Channing

  • 3 Zarbon 01:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3.5 Ningauble 16:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

When I die, I want to die in a Utopia that I have helped to build. ~ Henry Kuttner

  • 3 Zarbon 01:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
~ John Sheffield

There's no such thing in Nature; and you'll draw
A faultless monster which the world ne’er saw.
~ John Sheffield

  • 2 Zarbon 01:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC) needs context.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Read Homer once, and you can read no more;
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
~ John Sheffield

I believe in things I never used to. I think someone is trying to find me — has found me. And is calling. Who it is I don't know. What they want I don't know. But a little while ago I found out one more thing — this sword. ... Sometimes, when my mind is — abstract, something from outside floats into it. Like the need for a sword. And not any sword — just one. I don't know what the sword looks like, but I'd know if I held it in my hand. ... And if I drew it a few inches from the sheath, I could put out that fire up there as if I'd blown on it like a candleflame. And if I drew the sword all the way out — the world would come to an end! ~ Henry Kuttner

We are all part of some cosmic pattern, and this pattern works toward good and not evil. ~ Henry Kuttner

A doubled weapon wielded by the Face of Ea, wrought the cleaving apart of two universes.
Imponderable forces shifted when that cleavage took place. You and I know nothing about it, for it happened far beyond the perceptions of any sentient creature. But it happened. Oh yes, it happened. ~ Henry Kuttner

I'm going forward. I know — because I went. It was a wonderful world they had. I want to see more of it. I want to wake up in a time when the race of man is spreading through the galaxy, leaping across the gulfs between the stars, opening the gates to all the worlds. I want to and I will. ~ Henry Kuttner

I call that mind free, which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven. ~ William Ellery Channing

  • 3 Kalki 03:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 15:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

There are seasons, in human affairs, of inward and outward revolution, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when...to dare, is the highest wisdom. ~ William Ellery Channing

  • 3 Kalki 03:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 15:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
2004
Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous. ~ Zhuang Zi
2005
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Gautama Buddha
  • selected by Kalki; 8 April is Hana Matsuri (Flower Festival), the fixed-date celebration of Buddha's Birthday in Japan.
2006
Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love. This is the eternal rule. ~ Gautama Buddha
2007
Blessed are the poor in spirit:
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn:
    for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek:
    for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:
    for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful:
    for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart:
    for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers:
    for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake:
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) ~ (for Easter Sunday 2007 in both the Gregorian calendar and Eastern Orthodox reckonings)
2008
Look, look, look to the rainbow
Follow it over the hill and stream
Look, look, look to the rainbow
Follow the fellow who follows a dream.
~ Yip Harburg ~ (born 8 April 1896)
2009
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
~ Yip Harburg ~
2010

[edit] Suggestions

Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts. ~ Londo Mollari, Babylon 5, "Ceremonies of Light and Dark"; first broadcast 8 April 1996

  • 3 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 16:00, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 3 or eventually 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 23:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done. ~ Kofi Annan (born April 8)

  • 3 because sometimes, everything isn't nice and peaceful. Sometimes, the use of force is required. Zarbon 05:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today...we see better, and we see further — we will realize that humanity is indivisible. ~ Kofi Annan (born April 8)

  • 2 and this was trimmed in order to deliver its meaning, the fact that we have entered the third millennium and the realization of humanity is indivisible according to Annan. Zarbon 05:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) but would prefer to extend this and use it as an option for 11 September, which relates to the context of the remarks.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death. ~ Emile Cioran

What to think of other people? I ask myself this question each time I make a new acquaintance. So strange does it seem to me that we exist, and that we consent to exist. ~ Emile Cioran

Chaos is rejecting all you have learned. Chaos is being yourself. ~ Emile Cioran

Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows. ~ Emile Cioran

It is because we are all impostors that we endure each other. ~ Emile Cioran

Glory—once achieved, what is it worth? ~ Emile Cioran

  • 4 Zarbon 01:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) A rather simplistic and presumptive rhetorical question — the worth of any form of glory is in how it was obtained, among whom it is manifest, and how it is used.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity? ~ Emile Cioran

  • 3 Zarbon 01:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) All things matter to those with a profound sense of Eternity.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

For you who no longer posses it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion. ~ Emile Cioran

One hardly saves a world without ruling it. ~ Emile Cioran

To devastate by language, to blow up the word and with it the world. ~ Emile Cioran

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 01:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) but this needs context.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim. ~ Emile Cioran

The more we try to wrest ourselves from our ego, the deeper we sink into it. ~ Emile Cioran

  • 3 Zarbon 01:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3. I have corrected the misquote here and on the Cioran page by changing "rest" to "wrest" (confirmed by Google Book Search). - InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. ~ John Vance Cheney
2005
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. ~ Richard Feynman
2006
I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings — and I hate people like that! ~ Tom Lehrer (born 9 April 1928)
2007
It is at once by way of poetry and through poetry, as with music, that the soul glimpses splendors from beyond the tomb; and when an exquisite poem brings one’s eyes to the point of tears, those tears are not evidence of an excess of joy, they are witness far more to an exacerbated melancholy, a disposition of the nerves, a nature exiled among imperfect things, which would like to possess, without delay, a paradise revealed on this very same earth. ~ Charles Baudelaire (born 9 April 1821)
2008
Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity. ~ Charles Baudelaire
2009
These tall and handsome ships, swaying imperceptibly on tranquil waters, these sturdy ships, with their inactive, nostalgic appearance, don’t they say to us in a speechless tongue: When do we cast off for happiness? ~ Charles Baudelaire
2010

[edit] Suggestions

To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity. ~ Charles Baudelaire

It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. As it turns out, work is less boring than amusing oneself. ~ Charles Baudelaire

An artist is only an artist thanks to his exquisite sense of beauty — a sense which provides him with intoxicating delights, but at the same time implying and including a sense, equally exquisite, of all deformity and disproportion. ~ Charles Baudelaire

There is in a word, in a verb, something sacred which forbids us from using it recklessly. To handle a language cunningly is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery. ~ Charles Baudelaire

A field marshal is born, not made! ~ Erich Ludendorff (born April 9)

  • 3 and lean toward 4 because this is true. You cannot create the great character in a person, he must have it within. I love this militant mindset. Zarbon 06:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
    • SOURCE: World War I: A Student Encyclopedia - Page 1137 by Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts - History - 2005
  • 2 Arjen Dijksman 13:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 14:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself? ~ François Rabelais (date of death/date of birth unknown)

  • 4 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC) but ONLY IF extended to include:
He would never take upon him the charge nor government of monks. For how shall I be able, said he, to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself: l If you think I have done you, or may hereafter do you any acceptable service, give me leave to found an abbey after my own mind and fancy.
OTHERWISE, only 0, as the snippet quoted easily can be taken to imply a desire to rule over others, which the wise monk is wisely rejecting — as it is only those who least have power and command of themselves who most desire to rule over others, and those with most ability and wisdom wish it least.

I have nothing, owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor. ~ François Rabelais (date of death/date of birth unknown)

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I never follow the clock: hours were made for man, not man for hours. ~ François Rabelais

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

Men are not in hell because God is angry with them. They are in wrath and darkness because they have done to the light, which infinitely flows forth from God, as that man does to the light who puts out his own eyes. ~ William Law (date of death/date of birth unknown)

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

You can have no greater sign of confirmed pride than when you think you are humble enough. ~ William Law

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC) The wise have long observed that those who think themselves too humble and kind towards others and do "too much" for them are among the least kindly and humble of all, and often seek reasons or excuses to be even less so, while the wisest are usually quite humbly disposed to be as kind as honorably possible (without being even more unkind to others), even to those least deserving of kindness.

The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans. Our challenge for the future is that we realize we are very much a part of the earth's ecosystem, and we must learn to respect and live according to the basic biological laws of nature. ~ Jim Fowler

  • 2 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Almost all of the social tragedies occurring around the world today are caused by ignoring the basic biological laws of nature ... The quicker we humans learn that saving open space and wildlife is critical to our welfare and quality of life, maybe we'll start thinking of doing something about it. ~ Jim Fowler

  • 2 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Against this background, the jealousy of the protagonist becomes more credible, the blows to his pride more understandable, the final collapse of his personal, individual world more inevitable. But beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe. ~ Paul Robeson

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC) This is clearly lacking context as quoted here, but would give it a 3 if either cut to:

Beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe.

OR, perhaps extended to:
It was deeply fascinating to watch how strikingly contemporary American audiences from coast to coast found Shakespeare's Othello — painfully immediate in its unfolding of evil, innocence, passion, dignity and nobility, and contemporary in its overtones of a clash of cultures, of the partial acceptance of and consequent effect upon one of a minority group. Against this background, the jealousy of the protagonist becomes more credible, the blows to his pride more understandable, the final collapse of his personal, individual world more inevitable. But beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe.

One does not need a very long racial memory to loose on oneself in such a part...As I act, civilization falls away from me. My plight becomes real, the horrors terrible facts. I feel the terror of the slave mart, the degradation of man bought and sold into slavery. Well, I am the son of an emancipated slave and the stories of old father are vivid on the tablets of my memory. ~ Paul Robeson

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar.
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far,
Before you agonise them in farewell? ~ Laurence Hope

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I would have rather felt you round my throat
Crushing out life, than waving me farewell! ~ Laurence Hope

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It's the things that aren't accepted as conventionally beautiful that I find more attractive. ~ Marc Jacobs

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

A painting grows like a plant. Use all colours, all shapes. Everything that attracts and excites me is a part of me. Painting is about proportions, relationships which breathe life. Painting is a harmony which runs parallel to nature. ~ Stefan Szczesny

  • 2 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Light, colour, love - let me come under your spell. Life can be represented only by a lively kind of painting. There is clarity in passion. ~ Stefan Szczesny

  • 2 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

What is the secret behind the emotional effect of great works of painting? What laws govern their beauty? Delacroix said that being a feast for the eyes is the prime merit of a good painting. I seek the timeless, the quintessential in painting. ~ Stefan Szczesny

  • 2 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power. ~ J. William Fulbright

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

A pre-emptive war in 'defense' of freedom would surely destroy freedom, because one simply cannot engage in barbarous action without becoming a barbarian, because one cannot defend human values by calculated and unprovoked violence without doing mortal damage to the values one is trying to defend. ~ J. William Fulbright

  • 3 Zarbon 15:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul. ~ François Rabelais

  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 04:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

He that has patience may compass anything. ~ François Rabelais

  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 04:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Come, pluck up a good heart; speak the truth and shame the devil. ~ François Rabelais

  • 3 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 04:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed,
DO WHAT THOU WILT.
Because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour.
~ François Rabelais ~
  • 4 Kalki 21:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC) I think this is sufficient as quoted, but have also considered extending it to begin with:
All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good: they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it.
AND/OR ending with:
Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us.
  • 1 Zarbon 04:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

~ Tom Lehrer, "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park"
—This unsigned comment is by SuperJew (talk • contribs) .
  • 0 Zarbon 16:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 18:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.

~Francis Bacon, "Essex's Device" (1595)
—This unsigned comment is by SuperJew (talk • contribs) .
  • 1 Zarbon 16:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 18:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est. (Knowledge is power.)

~Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacræ [Sacred Meditations] (1597) "De Hæresibus" [Of Heresies]
—This unsigned comment is by SuperJew (talk • contribs) .
  • 0 and please sign your name and vote accordingly if you wish to participate. Zarbon 16:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 18:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Nil terribile nisi ipse timor. (Nothing is terrible except fear itself.)

~Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, Fortitudo (1623)
—This unsigned comment is by SuperJew (talk • contribs) .
  • 1 seems like the usual phrase "fear nothing but fear itself. Zarbon 16:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 18:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Israel's Exodus from Egypt will forever stay the spring of the whole world. (original hebrew: "יציאת ישראל ממצרים תישאר לעד האביב של כל העולם כולו.")

~Rabbi Kook. original quote appears here and Rabbi Kook's page is here
—This unsigned comment is by SuperJew (talk • contribs) .
  • 0 Zarbon 16:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 18:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. ~ Henry James
2005
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. ~ William Hazlitt (born 10 April 1778)
2006
Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality. ~ George William Russell (born 10 April 1867)
2007
To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead. ~ William Hazlitt (born 10 April 1778)
2008
They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings,
If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings,
It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides:
Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides.
~ Æ ~ [George William Russell] (born 10 April 1867)
2009
It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. ~ William Hazlitt
2010

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

  • Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. ~ William Hazlitt

[edit] Suggestions

Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight. ~ William Hazlitt (born April 10, 1778)

The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts. ~ William Hazlitt

It was the wise all-seeing soul
Who counselled neither war nor peace:
"Only be thou thyself that goal
In which the wars of time shall cease."
~ Æ ~

The lights grew thicker unheeded,
For silent and still were we;
Our hearts were drunk with a beauty
Our eyes could never see.
~ Æ ~

Oh Master of the Beautiful,
Creating us from hour to hour,
Give me this vision to the full
To see in lightest things thy power!
This vision give, no heaven afar,
No throne, and yet I will rejoice,
Knowing beneath my feet a star,
Thy word in every wandering voice.
~ Æ ~

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism. ~ Howard Thurman (date of death, exact date of birth unknown)

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 06:39, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Source: "Jesus and the Disinherited" - Page 74 - by Howard Thurman - Religion - 1996
  • 2 Arjen Dijksman 13:52, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 14:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Ningauble 20:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us. ~ Paul Theroux

Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art. ~ Paul Theroux

  • 3 for he who loves life knows it not until death arrives. Zarbon 04:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Ningauble 20:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:02, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there has been too much of) with ideas (of which there are too few). I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected. ~ Paul Theroux

  • 2 Zarbon 04:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2.5 Ningauble 20:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC) Perhaps without the first sentence.
  • 3. Agree with not including the first sentence. - InvisibleSun 21:02, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC) and agree it is best to drop the first sentence, though some of the rest remains flawed also, though I understand the point he is trying to make.

You have to find out for yourself. Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Learn the language. Listen to what people are saying. ~ Paul Theroux

  • 2 Zarbon 04:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Ningauble 20:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC) Without referent. Rather jumbled.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:02, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

While Women weep as they do now, I'll fight.
While little children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight.
While men go to prison, in and out, in and out, I'll fight.
While there is a drunkard left,
While there is a poor lost girl upon the streets,
While there remains one dark soul without the light of God,
I'll fight.
I'll fight to the very end! ~ William Booth

Without excuse and self-consideration of health or limb or life, true soldiers fight, live to fight, love the thickest of the fight, and die in the midst of it. ~ William Booth

  • 3 with a strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 04:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Ningauble 20:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC) I find this disparaging of those willing and able to fight to the finish, but who love it not.
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC) though it is in some ways misleading.

NOTE: The following suggestions are for the Dragon Ball movie that is being released in theaters on this date

I know now that it was meant to be this way. Sometimes, we have to look beyond what we want and do what's best...Come now, it's alright. This is the path that I've chosen. Lets talk about something else. Like how you've matured. You've become a truly great warrior, Gohan. And yet, you've remained humble. You've shown me that power is nothing if not guided by love. And watching you grow has helped me grow, Gohan. That's why I'm here. ~ Piccolo (Dragon Ball: Evolution The Movie is to be released in theaters on this date)

OR

I know now that it was meant to be this way. Sometimes, we have to look beyond what we want and do what's best.

  • 4 this is the most emotional/sentimental moment in the entire series, when Piccolo decides to sacrifice himself in order to protect the fate of his comrades. I prefer the longer version of the quote a bit more. This is the release date for the Dragon Ball movie in theaters this week and I scoured all the quotations in the entire series to find the most defining, emotional quotation. Zarbon 05:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Watch Gohan! I said watch! Don't turn away! Honor his bravery! ~ ~ Piccolo (Dragon Ball: Evolution The Movie is to be released in theaters on this date)

  • 2 though I still prefer the first Dragon Ball suggestion. Zarbon 14:55, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

It's ironic, isn't it? After all my years of training to defeat your father, I go out like this, trying to save you, his son...Gohan, you're the only real friend that I've ever had. I wanna thank you...I still remember the first day I brought you here. You were small, helpless. You've changed so much since then. The harder things got. The more determined you became. The more dangers you faced, the stronger you grew as a warrior. I know I was hard on you, but it was for your own good. You're like the son I never had. I'm proud of you. ~ Piccolo (Dragon Ball: Evolution The Movie is to be released in theaters on this date)

  • 3 though I still prefer the first Dragon Ball suggestion. Zarbon 14:55, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

No fighter that has ever won a victory did so using his fists alone. All battles are won before they are even fought. ~ Piccolo (Dragon Ball: Evolution The Movie is to be released in theaters on this date)

  • 3 though I still prefer the first Dragon Ball suggestion. Zarbon 14:55, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, soon you'll realize that the people on this planet aren't logical at all. Funny thing is, they've rubbed off on me. ~ Piccolo (Dragon Ball: Evolution The Movie is to be released in theaters on this date)

  • 3 though I still prefer the first Dragon Ball suggestion. Zarbon 14:55, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

You know, I used to be like you. One day you'll learn...that the more you hurt others, the harder your life becomes. It's simple. Your desire to kill is killing you! It's a darn shame! You could've put this hand to good use! What a waste of technology! ~ Piccolo (Dragon Ball: Evolution The Movie is to be released in theaters on this date)

  • 2 though I still prefer the first Dragon Ball suggestion. Zarbon 14:55, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. ~ Yeshua of Galilee (Jesus Christ) (Easter Sunday 2004)
2005
Our institutions were not devised to bring about uniformity of opinion; if they had we might well abandon hope. It is important to remember, as has well been said, 'the essential characteristic of true liberty is that under its shelter many different types of life and character and opinion and belief can develop unmolested and unobstructed'. ~ Charles Evans Hughes (born 11 April 1862)
2006
A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others. ~ Leo Rosten (born 11 April 1908)
2007
Extremists think "communication" means agreeing with them. ~ Leo Rosten (born 11 April 1908)
2008
When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free. ~ Charles Evans Hughes
2009
No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. ... Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses. .. The peril of this Nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope! ~ Charles Evans Hughes
2010

[edit] Suggestions

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong. ~ Leo Rosten

  • 3 Kalki 15:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 16:37, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 and lean toward 2. Zarbon 23:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Arjen Dijksman 13:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 It's his birthdate SuperJew 18:31, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I’m dead. ~ Kurt Vonnegut (recent death)

  • 1 Zarbon 23:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

If I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

  • 3 Kalki 21:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

When my own time comes to join the choir invisible or whatever, God forbid, I hope someone will say, "He's up in Heaven now." Who really knows? I could have dreamed all this.
My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.

  • 3 Kalki 23:47, 13 April 2007

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC

So it goes. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

  • 3 Kalki 21:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 2. Somewhat short. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 22:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC) -->
  • 1 Zarbon 23:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

So Billy experiences death for a while. It is simply violet light and a hum. There isn't anybody else there. Not even Billy Pilgrim is there. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nahum Reduta (talk • contribs) on April 13, 2007 at 7:21 (UTC)

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. ~ Susan Ertz

  • 2 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Farewell the hope that mocked, farewell despair
That went before me still and made the pace.
The earth is full of graves, and mine was there
Before my life began; my resting-place.
~ John Davidson

My feet are heavy now but on I go,
My head erect beneath the tragic years.
~ John Davidson

Unwilling friend, let not your spite abate;
Help me with scorn, and strengthen me with hate.
~ John Davidson

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Seraphs and saints with one great voice
Welcomed that soul that knew not fear.
Amazed to find it could rejoice,
Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer.
~ John Davidson

  • 3 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 but would extend it to begin with:
Across the weltering deep she ran;
A stranger thing was never seen:
The damned stood silent to a man;
They saw the great gulf set between.

To her it seemed a meadow fair;
And flowers sprang up about her feet
She entered heaven; she climbed the stair
And knelt down at the mercy-seat.

  • 3 for either version. - InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him. ~ Anton LaVey

In this arid wilderness of steel and stone I raise up my voice that you may hear. To the East and to the West I beckon. To the North and to the South I show a sign proclaiming: Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong! ~ Anton LaVey

No hoary falsehood shall be a truth to me; no stifling dogma shall encramp my pen! ~ Anton LaVey

The devils of past religions have always, at least in part, had animal characteristics, evidence of man's constant need to deny that he too is an animal, for to do so would serve a mighty blow to his impoverished ego. ~ Anton LaVey

You cannot love everyone; it is ridiculous to think you can. If you love everyone and everything you lose your natural powers of selection and wind up being a pretty poor judge of character and quality. If anything is used too freely it loses its true meaning. Therefore, the Satanist believes you should love strongly and completely those who deserve your love, but never turn the other cheek to your enemy! ~ Anton LaVey

When a person, by his reprehensible behavior, practically cries out to be destroyed, it is truly your moral obligation to indulge them their wish. ~ Anton LaVey

There are many who would take my time. I shun them.
There are some who share my time. I am entertained by them.
There are precious few who contribute to my time. I cherish them.
~ Anton LaVey

Man prides himself on being the only animal who can modify his nature, yet when he chooses to do so he is called a phony. ~ Anton LaVey

The only real progress to abiding peace is found in the friendly disposition of peoples and ... facilities for maintaining peace are useful only to the extent that this friendly disposition exists and finds expression. War is not only possible, but probable, where mistrust and hatred and desire for revenge are the dominant motives. Our first duty is at home with our own opinion, by education and unceasing effort to bring to naught the mischievous exhortation of chauvinists; our next is to aid in every practicable way in promoting a better feeling among peoples, the healing of wounds, and the just settlement of differences. ~ Charles Evans Hughes

  • 2 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

While democracy must have its organizations and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty. ~ Charles Evans Hughes

  • 2 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

We still proclam the old ideals of liberty but we cannot voice them without anxiety in our hearts. The question is no longer one of establishing democratic institutions but of preserving them. ... The arch enemies of society are those who know better but by indirection, misstatement, understatement, and slander, seek to accomplish their concealed purposes or to gain profit of some sort by misleading the public. The antidote for these poisons must be found in the sincere and courageous efforts of those who would preserve their cherished freedom by a wise and responsible use of it. Freedom of expression gives the essential democratic opportunity, but self-restraint is the essential civic discipline. ~ Charles Evans Hughes

At the constitutional level where we work, ninety percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections. ~ Charles Evans Hughes

Great powers agreeing among themselves may indeed hold small powers in check. But who will hold great powers in check when great powers disagree? ~ Charles Evans Hughes

There is no path to peace except as the will of peoples may open to it. The way of peace is through agreement, not through force. ~ Charles Evans Hughes

  • 2 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Nobody can be forced to commit an act of villainy. You can't push anybody into the mud; people always step into it themselves. No matter what the circumstances of life are, there are no justifications and there never will be any. But people look for justifications and they find them. All people have been taught to do that, and they've all proved diligent pupils. ~ Sergei Lukyanenko

  • 3 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3, save for the last sentence: not all people are diligent pupils of the paths of villainy.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I can prove anything by statistics except the truth. ~ George Canning

Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet,—perhaps may turn his blow!
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh save me from the candid friend!
~ George Canning

I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced that they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another. ~ Ellen Goodman

Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe and aren't even aware of. ~ Ellen Goodman

  • 2 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

When we describe what the other person is really like, I suppose we often picture what we want. We look through the prism of our need. ~ Ellen Goodman

  • 3 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

When I am dead, no pageant train
Shall waste their sorrows at my bier,
Nor worthless pomp of homage vain
Stain it with hypocritic tear.
~ Edward Everett

  • 3 and a strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

"The whole earth," said Pericles, as he stood over the remains of his fellow-citizens, who had fallen in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, — "the whole earth is the sepulchre of illustrious men." All time, he might have added, is the millennium of their glory. Surely I would do no injustice to the other noble achievements of the war, which have reflected such honor on both arms of the service, and have entitled the armies and the navy of the United States, their officers and men, to the warmest thanks and the richest rewards which a grateful people can pay. But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country there will be no brighter page than that which relates the Battles of Gettysburg. ~ Edward Everett

  • 2 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC) (though this might be better for 3 July the day on which the battle ended.)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The great object of all knowledge is to enlarge and purify the soul, to fill the mind with noble contemplations, to furnish a refined pleasure, and to lead our feeble reason from the works of nature up to its great Author and Sustainer. Considering this as the ultimate end of science, no branch of it can surely claim precedence of Astronomy. No other science furnishes such a palpable embodiment of the abstractions which lie at the foundation of our intellectual system; the great ideas of time, and space, and extension, and magnitude, and number, and motion, and power. How grand the conception of the ages on ages required for several of the secular equations of the solar system; of distances from which the light of a fixed star would not reach us in twenty millions of years, of magnitudes compared with which the earth is but a foot-ball; of starry hosts—suns like our own—numberless as the sands on the shore; of worlds and systems shooting through the infinite spaces. ~ Edward Everett

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. If we retrench the wages of the schoolmaster, we must raise those of the recruiting sergeant. ~ Edward Everett

  • 2 Zarbon 05:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC) But a 3 if trimmed to the first sentence.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity. ~Albert Einstein

  • 3 It's the day he announced his Theory of relativity SuperJew 18:31, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean to 3 or perhaps an eventual 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it. ~Primo Levi

  • 4 It's his death date SuperJew 18:31, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses. We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless. ~Primo Levi

  • 3 It's his death date SuperJew 18:31, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 00:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Many people need desperately to receive this message: "I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone." ~ Kurt Vonnegut in Timequake

A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward — and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

History is merely a list of surprises. ... It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down. ~ Kurt Vonnegut with a lean toward 4.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do. ~ Kurt Vonnegut in Timequake

A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the Whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness. People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends. ~ Kurt Vonnegut


2004
Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. ~ Pierre Trudeau (on Canadian relations with the US)
2005
A living body is not merely an integration of limbs and flesh but it is the abode of the soul which potentially has perfect perception, perfect knowledge, perfect power, and perfect bliss. ~ Mahavira (599 or 549 BC) Mahavira Jayanti 2005 celebrating Mahavira's birth (Cregorian calendar and the traditional Jain calculations do not correspond precisely from year to year).
2006
Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed. ~ Tom Clancy (born 12 April 1947)
2007
Fighting wars is not so much about killing people as it is about finding things out. The more you know, the more likely you are to win a battle. ~ Tom Clancy
2008
The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments. - Henry Clay (born 12 April 1777)
2009
He that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) (Easter Sunday 2009)
2010

[edit] Suggestions

No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it. Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there's somebody else who has never had a good idea in his life who stands up and says, "Oh, you can't do that..." ~ Tom Clancy

Historically, anything that gets information to people is good for the world. The most important human being whoever lived, if you want to leave out religious figures, would be Johannes Gutenberg... that's when the liberation of human thought happened, because people could read the thoughts of people across the world, and have thoughts of their own, and publish them and spread information around. Anything that gets information to people is good. ~ Tom Clancy

  • 3 Kalki 14:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 15:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Arjen Dijksman 13:58, 5 April 2009 (UTC). Last part of the quote being put apart: not all means of information are good.

The average guy is smart enough to know the difference between what works and what doesn't, and if you have bad information, sooner or later, you figure it out and you get onto something else. ~ Tom Clancy

The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity — unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity. - Henry Clay

I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance... The Union, sir, is my country. - Henry Clay

Slow justice is not justice. ~ Federico Hernández Denton

I have very strongly this feeling... that our everyday life is at one and the same time banal, overfamiliar, platitudinous and yet mysterious and extraordinary. ~ Bryan Magee

  • 2 Zarbon 15:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers. Each of us emerges from the preconsciousness of babyhood and simply finds himself here, in it, in the world. That experience alone astonishes some people. What is all this — what is the world? And what are we? From the beginning of humanity some have been under a compulsion to ask these questions, and have felt a craving for the answers. This is what is really meant by any such phrase as "mankind's need for metaphysics." ~ Bryan Magee

Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet. I understood on some dim, detached level that the sweep of earth beneath my feet was a spectacular sight. I'd been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care. ~ Jon Krakauer

I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty. There are some ten thousand religious sects — each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain — which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief. And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why — which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive. ~ Jon Krakauer

  • 2 Zarbon 15:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Religion is another name for the realization of Truth. It consists in becoming and being one with the Supreme Being. Doctrines and dogmas are only details of a secondary nature. ~ Swami Narayanananda

Every discord is a harmony not understood. Happiness is a disease, and pain, a medicine. ~ Swami Narayanananda

Love is not lust. The two are poles apart. Love liberates while lust binds. ~ Swami Narayanananda

If women could be fair and yet not fond,
Or that their love were firm, not fickle still,
I would not marvel that they make men bond
By service long to purchase their good will;
But when I see how frail those creatures are,
I laugh that men forget themselves so far.
~ Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Nothing, believe me, nothing is more satisfying to me personally than getting a great idea and then beatin' it to death. ~ David Letterman

It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so. ~ Josh Billings

I don't care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words. ~ Josh Billings

You will either offend the world and please God, or please the world and offend God. ~ John Hagee

  • 4 Zarbon 15:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 07:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC) Though I accept that there are absolute truths to be sought and reckoned by, far beyond concerns about any pleasing or displeasing of others, because I do, I cannot accept so absolute and thus false a dichotomy as this statement implies.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 18:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Why would you want to be politically correct when you can be right? ~ John Hagee

  • 2 Zarbon 15:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 07:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC) Though the wisest usually aim to be polite and politically prudent, they don't seek to have themselves or anyone else constrained to any extremely shallow notions of "correctness" as are presumptively pre-defined and delineated by many — whether they are actually called that or not. Too shallow and narrow a conception of what is either "right" or "correct" for everyone, is galling to a mind which respects the principles of both Liberty and Justice, and the interplay that arises between them.
  • 1 InvisibleSun 18:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
2005
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. ~ Thomas Jefferson (born 13 April 1743 (N.S.))
2006
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. ~ Thomas Jefferson
2007
The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths. ~ Christopher Hitchens
2008
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. ~ Thomas Jefferson (bprn April 13, 1743)
2009
I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. ~ Thomas Jefferson
2010

[edit] Suggestions

It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism — free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence ~ Thomas Jefferson

We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it. ~ Thomas Jefferson

  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • This was already used on 21 December 2003. ~ Kalki 13:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfathomable mind, now beacon, now sea. ~ Samuel Beckett (born April 13, 1906)

These things I say, and shall say, if I can, are no longer, or are not yet, or never were, or never will be, or if they were, if they are, if they will be, were not here, are not here, will not be here, but elsewhere. ~ Samuel Beckett

Perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on. ~ Samuel Beckett

The fact is that serious trials and fearless investigations often are the cause of great division, and rightly so. ~ Christopher Hitchens (born April 13, 1949)

All the excitements of a prohibited book had their usual effect, one of which, as always, is to expose the fact that the censors don't know what they are talking about. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of. ~ Samuel Beckett

To know nothing is nothing, not to want to know anything likewise, but to be beyond knowing anything, to know you are beyond knowing anything, that is when peace enters in, to the soul of the incurious seeker. ~ Samuel Beckett

We are all born mad. Some remain so. ~ Samuel Beckett

Let us do something while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! ~ Samuel Beckett

I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another. ~ Thomas Jefferson

There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give. ~ Thomas Jefferson

God is a foreman with certain definite views
Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.
~ Seamus Heaney

History says don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
~ Seamus Heaney

A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy. ~ Guy Fawkes

  • 3 Zarbon 05:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 05:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC) (although it is likely he was quoting or paraphrasing a remark of Hippocrates.)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Over the mountains,
And over the waves,
Over the fountains,
And under the graves;
Over the floods that are deepest,
Which do Neptune obey;
Over the rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.
~ Thomas Percy

In conclusion, if you want to unravel the multitude of secrets of chess then don't begrudge the time. ~ Garry Kasparov

  • 3 Zarbon 05:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 05:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2. Would not include the first two words. - InvisibleSun 22:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Alekhine's attacks came suddenly, like destructive thunderstorms that erupted from a clear sky. ~ Garry Kasparov

  • 2 Zarbon 05:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 05:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The most completely wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed. ~ Nicolas Chamfort

  • 3 Zarbon 05:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 05:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC) (others are credited with similar remarks)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Anyone who has no character is not a man, but a thing. ~ Nicolas Chamfort

The only thing that stops God sending a second Flood is that the first one was useless. ~ Nicolas Chamfort

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. ~ Eudora Welty

  • 2 Zarbon 05:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 05:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
2005
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. ~ James Branch Cabell (born 14 April 1879)
2006
Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) (Good Friday 2006)
2007
All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist... It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever... Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "So it goes." ~ Kurt Vonnegut (recent death)
2008
What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. ... But you, I think, have always comprehended this. ~ James Branch Cabell
2009
Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
One thing unshaken stays:
Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
Whereby decays
Each thing save one thing: — mid this strife diurnal
Of hourly change begot,
Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
And changes not.
~ James Branch Cabell ~
2010

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

[edit] Suggestions

And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.
—Thomas Hardy, "The Convergence of the Twain (Lines on the loss of the Titanic)" (1912)

  • The "convergence" of the Titanic and the iceberg was on April 14, 1912.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 08:46, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 22:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC) but I strongly prefer to hold this one in reserve until the 100th anniversary in 2012, on which date I would certainly give it a 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 23:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Criticism, whatever may be its pretensions, never does more than to define the impression which is made upon it at a certain moment by a work wherein the writer himself noted the impression of the world which he received at a certain hour. ~ James Branch Cabell

  • 3 Kalki 22:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 23:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It is necessary that I climb very high because of my love for you, and upon the heights there is silence. ~ James Branch Cabell

  • 3 Kalki 22:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 23:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug; as well as that, among other requisites, the gallant person will always consider the world with a smile of toleration, and his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile which is not distrustful — being thoroughly persuaded that God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational. ~ James Branch Cabell

  • 3 Kalki 16:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 20:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. ~ James Branch Cabell

  • 3 Kalki 16:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 20:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

  • 2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

History is a vision of God's creation on the move. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

  • 2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

  • 3 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

  • 2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

A life which does not go into action is a failure. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

  • 3 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Great occasions rally great principles, and brace the mind to a lofty bearing, a bearing that is even above itself. But trials that make no occasion at all, leave it to show the goodness and beauty it has in its own disposition. And here precisely is the superhuman glory of Christ as a character, that He is just as perfect, exhibits just as great a spirit in little trials as in great ones. ~ Horace Bushnell

Christianity is not so much the advent of a better doctrine as of a perfect character. ~ Horace Bushnell

My own experience is that the Bible is dull when I am dull. When I am really alive, and set in upon the text with a tidal pressure of living affinities, it opens, it multiplies discoveries, and reveals depths even faster than I can note them. The worldly spirit shuts the Bible; the Spirit of God makes it a fire, flaming out all meanings and glorious truths. ~ Horace Bushnell

O Thou Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, what Thou bearest in Thy blessed hands and feet I cannot bear; take it all away. Hide me in the depths of Thy suffering love, mold me to the image of Thy divine passion. ~ Horace Bushnell

The world is my country, science is my religion. ~ Christiaan Huygens

  • 4 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC) but only in revised form, and as yet very tenuously for that: the earliest and only published citation I can find attributing such a statement to Huygens is in The Making of Modern Europe, 1648-1780 (1985) by Geoffrey Treasure, p. 474 where it is declared that his "motto" was "The world is my country, to promote science is my religion" but this seems very similar to the much more famous and long attested declaration of Thomas Paine: "The world is my country, and to do good is my religion."

The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do. ~ John Holt

The idea of painless, non-threatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence. ~ John Holt

God and the people are the source of all power. I have twice been given the power. I have taken it, and damn it, I will keep it forever. ~ François Duvalier

Bullets and machine guns capable of daunting Duvalier do not exist. They cannot touch me... I am already an immaterial being. ~ François Duvalier


2004
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr. ~ Will Rogers (US income tax filing deadline, April 15)
2005
Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing ... Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles... ~ Leonardo da Vinci (born 15 April 1452)
2006
Although to penetrate into the intimate mysteries of nature and thence to learn the true causes of phenomena is not allowed to us, nevertheless it can happen that a certain fictive hypothesis may suffice for explaining many phenomena. ~ Leonhard Euler (born 15 April 1707)
2007
We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. ~ Henry James
2008
Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; and when the mind is imaginative — much more when it happens to be that of a man of genius — it takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations. ~ Henry James
2009
e^{i \pi} + 1 = 0. \,\!
Gentlemen, that is surely true, it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannot understand it, and we don't know what it means. But we have proved it, and therefore we know it must be the truth.

~ Benjamin Peirce on Euler's identity ~

2010

[edit] Suggestions

A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it. ~ Henry James (born April 15, 1843)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 09:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

If we pretend to respect the artist at all we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions, and some of the most interesting experiments of which it is capable are hidden in the bosom of common things. ~ Henry James

  • 3 InvisibleSun 09:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 03:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 23:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Life being all inclusion and confusion, and art being all discrimination and selection, the latter, in search of the hard latent value with which it alone is concerned, sniffs round the mass as instinctively and unerringly as a dog suspicious of some buried bone. ~ Henry James

We are divided of course between liking to feel the past strange and liking to feel it familiar. ~ Henry James

Perversely adorable always — and I scarce know why — the late afternoon light in deserted haunts of study; with the secret of supreme dignity lurking, above all, in high, dusky, wainscoted chambers where the sound of one's footfall lingers, to one's pleasure, like a caress, and where portraits of the appurtenant worthies, the heroes and patrons, grow vague in the twilight. It is a tribute to the forces of idealism lurking again and again, over the country, in the amenity of the general Collegiate appearance, that the last thing these conditions overtly suggest, or seem to accept as their imputed virtue, is this precipitation of the young intelligence into the mere vociferous market. ~ Henry James

Don't do the right thing looking for a reward, because it might not come. ~ Hugh Thompson, Jr.

  • 3 Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's to the day when it is May
And care as light as a feather,
When your little shoes and my big boots
Go tramping over the heather.
~ Bliss Carman

Sir king, I have been often accused of harbouring traitorous designs against you, but, as God in heaven is just and true, may this morsel of bread choke me if even in thought I have ever been false to you. ~ Godwin, Earl of Wessex

  • 3 Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC) but leaning toward 0, as this is considered to be a very doubtful attribution.

A thought has no size in the physical sense but is vast as compared to the physical acts and objects into which it is later precipitated. The power of a thought is enormous and superior to all the successive physical acts, objects, and events that body forth its energy. A thought often endures for a time much greater than the whole life of the man who thought it. ~ Harold W. Percival

  • 3 Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 01:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

This is the law: Every thing existing on the physical plane is an exteriorization of thought, which must be balanced through the one who issued the thought, and in accordance with that one’s responsibility, at the conjunction of time, condition, and place. ~ Harold W. Percival

As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed procures a happy death. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

OR

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

  • 4 for both versions. Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 for either version.
  • 1 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

OR

Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

  • 3 for both versions. Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 for the first version. - InvisibleSun 01:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC) preferring the first version.

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

  • 3 and lean toward 4. Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 01:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest punishments. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

The sun gives spirit and life to plants and the earth nourishes them with moisture. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Movement will fail sooner than usefulness. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

OR

Movement will cease before we are weary of being useful. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

  • 3 for both versions. Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 for either version. - InvisibleSun 01:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC) for either.

The senses are of the earth; Reason, stands apart in contemplation. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than with the imagination being awake? ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Wisdom is the daughter of experience. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory. Good culture is born of a good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than the effect, I will rather praise a good disposition without culture, than good culture without the disposition. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

  • 2 Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 01:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

  • 3 and lean toward 4. Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 01:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

O Time! consumer of all things; O envious age! thou dost destroy all things and devour all things with the relentless teeth of years, little by little in a slow death. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God's grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

The grave will fall in upon him who digs it. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. All my favorite characters plot only to become victims themselves. That is the splendid beauty of their essence. Zarbon 04:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 01:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

He who thinks little, errs much. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and attacks it; and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain behind. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

There will be many men who will move one against another, holding in their hands a cutting tool. But these will not do each other any injury beyond tiring each other; for, when one pushes forward the other will draw back. But woe to him who comes between them! For he will end by being cut in pieces. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Doubt comes in at the window, when Inquiry is denied at the door. ~ Benjamin Jowett

These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel. ~Abraham Lincoln

  • 3 Lincoln's death dateSuperJew 08:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC) but I remain inclined to generally rate suggestions for death dates less high than birth dates, save when birth dates of people are unknown, or the specific quote is perhaps more relevant to the death date for some reason.
    • I think people are more quoted more after their deaths and they are remembered on their deaths (for example: Jewish death dates (Yahrtzeit), which sadly doesn't have an article on en:wiki and Asian cultures)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. ~Abraham Lincoln

  • (Lincoln's death date) 4 SuperJew 08:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC) 3 SuperJew 14:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way. ~Abraham Lincoln

  • 4 Lincoln's death date SuperJew 08:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be take pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy ~Abraham Lincoln

  • (Lincoln's death date) 4 SuperJew 08:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC) 3 SuperJew 14:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 13:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ~Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address

  • (Lincoln's death date) 4 SuperJew 08:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC) 3 SuperJew 14:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 this would be more appropriate for either 3 July, the date of the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, or perhaps, 19 November the date of the speech (where a small portion of it has already been used).
  • 1 Zarbon 15:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
Curse on all laws but those which love has made! ~ Alexander Pope
2005
In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. ~ Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (born 16 April 1889)
2006
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) (Easter Sunday 2006)
2007
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. ~ Anatole France (born 16 April 1844)
2008
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~ Anatole France
2009
What one man can do himself directly is but little. If however he can stir up ten others to take up the task he has accomplished much. ~ Wilbur Wright
2010

[edit] Suggestions

It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill. This I conceive to be fortunate, for man, by reason of his greater intellect, can more reasonably hope to equal birds in knowledge than to equal nature in the perfection of her machinery... ~ Wilbur Wright (born 16 April 1867)

There was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones. ~ Kingsley Amis (born 16 April 1922)

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. ~ Anatole France (born 16 April 1844)

Why did my parents send me to the schools
That I with knowledge might enrich my mind?
Since the desire to know first made men fools,
And did corrupt the root of all mankind.
~ John Davies

What can we know, or what can we discern,
When error chokes the windows of the mind,
The diverse forms of things, how can we learn,
That have been ever from our birthday blind?
~ John Davies

We that acquaint ourselves with every zone,
And pass both tropics and behold the poles,
When we come home, are to ourselves unknown,
And unacquainted still with our own souls.
~ John Davies

I know my life's a pain and but a span,
I know my sense is mocked with everything;
And to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.
~ John Davies

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them. ~ Peter Ustinov

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously. ~ Peter Ustinov

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy. ~ Peter Ustinov

  • 3 Zarbon 00:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 01:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come. ~ Peter Ustinov

  • 3 Zarbon 00:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 01:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. ~ Wilbur Wright

Be glad you're fifty — and
That you got there while things were nice,
In a world worth looking at twice.
So here's wishing you many more years,
But not all that many. Cheers!
~ Kingsley Amis

It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion. ~ Anatole France

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 00:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 01:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 01:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Suffering — how divine it is, how misunderstood! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues. ~ Anatole France

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 00:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 01:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 01:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one. ~ Anatole France

He had no knowledge and had no desire to acquire any; wherein he conformed to his genius whose engaging fragility he forbore to overload; his instinct fortunately telling him that it was better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot. ~ Anatole France

It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil. ~ Anatole France

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. ~ Anatole France

To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything. ~ Anatole France

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the wisdom of indifference. ~ Anatole France

People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them. ~ Anatole France

It is by acts, and not by ideas that people live. ~ Anatole France

The finest words in the world are only vain sounds, if you cannot comprehend them. ~ Anatole France

It is well for the heart to be naive and for the mind not to be. ~ Anatole France

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. ~ Anatole France

  • 2 Zarbon 00:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 01:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever. ~ Anatole France

  • 3 Zarbon 00:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 01:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. ~ B. F. Skinner
2005
We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. ~ Thornton Wilder (born 17 April 1897)
2006
Where the storyteller is loyal, eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak. Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness. But we, the faithful, when we have spoken our last word, will hear the voice of silence. ~ Karen Blixen (born 17 April 1885)
2007
Man is not an end but a beginning. We are at the beginning of the second week. We are children of the eighth day. ~ Thornton Wilder
2008
I am not a novelist, really not even a writer; I am a storyteller. One of my friends said about me that I think all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them, and perhaps this is not entirely untrue. To me, the explanation of life seems to be its melody, its pattern. And I feel in life such an infinite, truly inconceivable fantasy. ~ Karen Blixen
2009
The real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. ~ Karen Blixen
2010

Quotes by people born on this day, already used as QOTD:

  • I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for. ~ Thornton Wilder

[edit] Suggestions

Love is an energy which exists of itself. It is its own value. ~ Thornton Wilder

It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is rather a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves. ~ Thornton Wilder

A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it. ~ Thornton Wilder

The best of my nature reveals itself in play, and play is sacred. ~ Karen Blixen

Africa, amongst the continents, will teach it to you: that God and the Devil are one, the majesty coeternal, not two uncreated but one uncreated, and the Natives neither confounded the persons nor divided the substance. ~ Karen Blixen

Terrorism has no motherland and terrorists have no nationality. ~ Karen Demirchyan (born April 17)

  • 3 because it is very true. Those who terrorize for no reason have commitment to absolutely no ideals and belong to no race, religion, or land. They serve no one. - Zarbon 04:13, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
    • SOURCE: BBC Archive - NewsBank - Oct 20, 1999
  • 2 InvisibleSun 02:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

In Beauty's dwelling all things fair,
And rich, to win her sweet smiles strove;
But still young Beauty's only care
Was, to watch o'er the lamp of Love.
~ Eliza Acton

But tir'd at length poor Beauty slept,
And while she rested, wearied quite,
Indifference to the dear lamp crept,
And quench'd its warm, and splendid light.
~ Eliza Acton

It's better to live one day as a lion, than one hundred years as a worm. ~ Željko Ražnatović

  • 3 Zarbon 19:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

If somebody wants to kill me, he will - no matter what stands in his way. ~ Željko Ražnatović

  • 2 Zarbon 19:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
~ Henry Vaughan

I see them walking in an air of glory
Whose light doth trample on my days,
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
~ Henry Vaughan

  • 3 and lean toward 4. Zarbon 19:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 02:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
~ Henry Vaughan

Product and capital are essentially different things; the former belongs to individuals, the latter to society. ~ Benjamin Tucker

All freedom of trade must disappear. Competition must be utterly wiped out. All industrial and commercial activity must be centered in one vast, enormous, all-inclusive monopoly. The remedy for monopolies is monopoly. ~ Benjamin Tucker

What other applications this principle of Authority, once adopted in the economic sphere, will develop is very evident. It means the absolute control by the majority of all individual conduct. The right of such control is already admitted by the State Socialists, though they maintain that, as a matter of fact, the individual would be allowed a much larger liberty than he now enjoys. But he would only be allowed it; he could not claim it as his own. There would be no foundation of society upon a guaranteed equality of the largest possible liberty. Such liberty as might exist would exist by sufferance and could be taken away at any moment. Constitutional guarantees would be of no avail. There would be but one article in the constitution of a State Socialistic country: "The right of the majority is absolute." ~ Benjamin Tucker

Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital. ~ Benjamin Tucker

The nurse and the teacher, like the doctor and the preacher, must be selected voluntarily, and their services must be paid for by those who patronize them. Parental rights must not be taken away, and parental responsibilities must not be foisted upon others. ~ Benjamin Tucker

We designate by the term "State" institutions that embody absolutism in its extreme form and institutions that temper it with more or less liberality. We apply the word alike to institutions that do nothing but aggress and to institutions that, besides aggressing, to some extent protect and defend. But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care. ~ Benjamin Tucker

The Anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority. ~ Benjamin Tucker

  • 3 Zarbon 00:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 02:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

Once for all, then, we are not opposed to the punishment of thieves and murderers; we are opposed to their manufacture. ~ Benjamin Tucker

I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified. ~ Benjamin Tucker

But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder. Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. And capital punishment, however ineffective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act, - at least in theory. ~ Benjamin Tucker

I insist that there is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can. ~ Benjamin Tucker

  • 3 and lean toward 4. Zarbon 00:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 02:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

It is not wise warfare to throw your ammunition to the enemy unless you throw it from the cannon's mouth. But if you can compel the enemy to waste his ammunition by drawing his fire on some thoroughly protected spot; if you can, by annoying and goading and harassing him in all possible ways, drive him to the last resort of stripping bare his tyrannous and invasive purposes and put him in the attitude of a designing villain assailing honest men for purposes of plunder; there is no better strategy. ~ Benjamin Tucker

"Passive resistance," said Ferdinand Lassalle, with an obtuseness thoroughly German, "is the resistance which does not resist." Never was there a greater mistake. It is the only resistance which in these days of military discipline resists with any result. There is not a tyrant in the civilized world today who would not do anything in his power to precipitate a bloody revolution rather than see himself confronted by any large fraction of his subjects determined not to obey. An insurrection is easily quelled; but no army is willing or able to train its guns on inoffensive people who do not even gather in the streets but stay at home and stand back on their rights. Neither the ballot nor the bayonet is to play any great part in the coming struggle; passive resistance is the instrument by which the revolutionary force is destined to secure in the last great conflict the people's rights forever. ~ Benjamin Tucker

Commanded love of all men indiscriminately is an obliteration of distinction between love and hate, and therefore is not love at all. ~ Benjamin Tucker

One thing, however, is sure, - that in all cases the effort should be to impose all the cost of repairing the wrong upon the doer of the wrong. This alone is real justice, and of course such justice is necessarily free. ~ Benjamin Tucker

  • 3 Zarbon 00:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice. ~ Benjamin Tucker

  • 3 Zarbon 00:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

We are here, on earth. Not one of us has any right to the earth. ~ Benjamin Tucker

  • 2 Zarbon 00:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The belief that torture is always wrong is a prejudice inherited from an obsolete philosophy. We need to shed the belief that human rights are violated when a terrorist is tortured. As Rawls and others have shown, basic freedoms must form a coherent whole. Self-evidently, there can be no right to attack basic human rights. Therefore, once the proper legal procedures are in place, torturing terrorists cannot violate their rights. In fact, in a truly liberal society, terrorists have an inalienable right to be tortured. ~ John N. Gray

  • 2 Zarbon 01:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2. Would prefer the suggestion which follows, which makes it clearer, out of context, that this was written satirically. - 02:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Human rights are not just cultural or legal constructions, as fashionable western relativists are fond of claiming. They are universal values. To deny the benefits of the new regime of rights to other cultures is to patronise them in a way that is reminiscent of the colonial era. If the new regime on torture is good enough for the US, who can say that it is not good for everyone? ~ John N. Gray

The core of the belief in progress is that human values and goals converge in parallel with our increasing knowledge. The twentieth century shows the contrary. Human beings use the power of scientific knowledge to assert and defend the values and goals they already have. New technologies can be used to alleviate suffering and enhance freedom. They can, and will, also be used to wage war and strengthen tyranny. Science made possible the technologies that powered the industrial revolution. In the twentieth century, these technologies were used to implement state terror and genocide on an unprecedented scale. Ethics and politics do not advance in line with the growth of knowledge — not even in the long run. ~ John N. Gray

The mass political movements of the 20th century were vehicles for myths inherited from religion, and it is no accident that religion is reviving now that these movements have collapsed. ~ John N. Gray

Knowledge grows, but human beings remain much the same. ~ John N. Gray

The US — its bankrupt mortgage institutions nationalised and its gigantic war machine effectively funded by foreign borrowing — is in steep decline. With its financial system in the worst mess since the 1930s, the west's ability to shape events is dwindling by the day. Sermonising about "law-based international relations" is laughable after Iraq, and at bottom not much more than nostalgia for a vanished hegemony. ~ John N. Gray

Over the past 200 years, philosophy has shaken off Christian faith. It has not given up Christianity's cardinal error — the belief that humans are radically different from all other animals. ~ John N. Gray

I am attracted only to music which I consider to be better than it can be performed. Therefore I feel (rightly or wrongly) that unless a piece of music presents a problem to me, a never-ending problem, it doesn't interest me too much. ~ Artur Schnabel

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. ~ J. P. Morgan

  • 3 Zarbon 01:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Any man who does not carry with him the value of all of the men around him does not carry the value to spend my time. ~ J. P. Morgan

  • 2 Zarbon 01:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Critics: People who make monuments out of books. Biographers: People who make books out of monuments. Poets: People who raze monuments. Publishers: People who sell rubble. Readers: People who buy it. ~ Cynthia Ozick

  • 3 Zarbon 01:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. ...Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? — Every, every minute? ~ Thornton Wilder

  • 3 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

On the stage it is always now; the personages are standing on that razor edge, between the past and the future, which is the essential character of conscious being; the words are rising to their lips in immediate spontaneity … The theater is supremely fitted to say: "Behold! These things are." ~ Thornton Wilder

  • 3 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

There is in God — some say —
A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that Night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim!
~ Henry Vaughan ~

  • 3 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 15:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light.
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world
And all her train were hurled.
~ Henry Vaughan ~

  • 3 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

As angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
~ Henry Vaughan ~

  • 3 Kalki 15:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. ~ Bill Hicks
2005
Music can be all things to all persons. It is like a great dynamic sun in the center of a solar system which sends out its rays and inspiration in every direction.... Music makes us feel that the heavens open and a divine voice calls. Something in our souls responds and understands. ~ Leopold Stokowski (born 18 April 1882)
2006
I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure — that is all that agnosticism means. ~ Clarence Darrow (born 18 April 1857)
2007
History repeats itself. That’s one of the things wrong with history. ~ Clarence Darrow
2008
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. ~ Clarence Darrow
2009
I believe that music can be an inspirational force in all our lives — that its eloquence and the depth of its meaning are all-important, and that all personal considerations concerning musicians and the public are relatively unimportant — that music come from the heart and returns to the heart — that music is spontaneous, impulsive expression — that its range is without limit — that music is forever growing — that music can be one element to help us build a new conception of life in which the madness and cruelty of wars will be replaced by a simple understanding of the brotherhood of man. ~ Leopold Stokowski
2010

[edit] Suggestions

If there is to be any permanent improvement in man and any better social order, it must come mainly from the education and humanizing of man. I am quite certain that the more the question of crime and its treatment is studied the less faith men have in punishment. ~ Clarence Darrow

The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along. ~ Clarence Darrow

As long as the world shall last, there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever. ~ Clarence Darrow

Reason is always in the service of the political and economic masters. It is here that literature strikes, at this base, where the concepts and actings of order impose themselves. Literature is that which denounces and slashes apart the repressing machine at the level of the signified. ~ Kathy Acker

  • 3 Kalki 22:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 23:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies. ~ Kathy Acker

  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC) * 4 Kalki 22:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence. ~ Leopold Stokowski

  • 3 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. ~ Samuel P. Huntington

  • 2 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do. ~ Samuel P. Huntington

  • 3 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous … Imperialism is the necessary logical consequence of universalism. ~ Samuel P. Huntington

OR

Imperialism is the necessary logical consequence of universalism. ~ Samuel P. Huntington

  • 3 for both versions. Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 but only for the first part of the statement, as the last statement as it exists fails to provide the context that he is speaking of western assumptions of an existing universalism of western values.

In the emerging era, clashes of civilization are the greatest threat to world peace, and an international order based on civilizations is the surest safeguard against world war. ~ Samuel P. Huntington

  • 2 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced — that without intelligence we should be Brutes — but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 3 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

Instead, therefore, of saying that Man is the creature of Circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that Man is the architect of Circumstance. It is Character which builds an existence out of Circumstance. Our strength is measured by our plastic power. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovels, one warehouses, another villas. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 3 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

No man ever made a discovery (he may have stumbled on one) without the exercise of as much imagination as, employed in another direction and in alliance with other faculties, would have gone to the creation of a poem. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 2 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.

It is not by his faults, but by his excellences, that we measure a great man. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 3 and lean toward 4. Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

No deeply-rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 4 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world, and vilifying human nature. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 2 Zarbon 03:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The great desire of this age is for a Doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that Conduct may really be the consequence of Belief. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Whatever lies beyond the limits of experience, and claims another origin than that of induction and deduction from established data, is illegitimate. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed. ~ George Henry Lewes

  • 3 Kalki 19:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 15:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


2004 
Materialists and madmen never have doubts. ~ G. K. Chesterton
2005 
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius. ~ Benjamin Disraeli (died 19 April 1881)
2006 
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought on 19 April 1775)
2007
Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth. ~ Jehanne Darc (Joan of Arc) (Official Beatification by the Roman Catholic Church in 1903)
2008
When you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you don't turn into a mystic you are not a natural scientist. ~ Albert Hofmann (for Bicycle Day)
2009
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) (Easter Sunday by the reckonings of the Eastern Orthodox traditions 2009
2010

[edit] Suggestions

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children. ~ Jimmy Carter

Byron was dead! I thought the whole world was at an end. I thought everything was over and finished for everyone — that nothing else mattered. I remembered I walked out alone, and carved "Byron is dead" into the sandstone. - Alfred Tennyson

  • Byron died on April 19, 1824
  • 3 InvisibleSun 00:02, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: "Byron is dead!" - Jane Welsh Carlyle

We painters use the same license as poets and madmen. ~ Paolo Veronese

  • 3 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I paint my pictures with all the considerations which are natural to my intelligence, and according as my intelligence understands them. ~ Paolo Veronese

  • 2 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Age is deformed, youth unkind,
We scorn their bodies, they our mind. ~ Thomas Bastard

  • 3 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

A good film is one that requires the viewer to create, through an orchestration of impressions, the meaning of its events. It is, in the end, our ability to create meaning out of the raw experience of life that makes us human. It is the exercise of our faculty to discover meaning which is the purpose of art. The didactic imparting of moral or political messages is emphatically not the purpose of art — that is what we call propaganda. ~ Peter Chung

  • 3 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I do not yet want to form a hypothesis to test, because as soon as you make a hypothesis, you become prejudiced. Your mind slides into a groove, and once it is in that groove, has difficulty noticing anything outside of it. During this time, my sense must be sharp; that is the main thing — to be sharp, yet open. ~ Bernd Heinrich

  • 3 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 00:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC) * 4 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC) but still with a strong lean toward 4.

For right will alwayes live, and rise at length,
But wrong can never take deepe roote to last. ~ Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

  • 3 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

The wrathfull winter proching on apace,
With blustering blasts had all ybarde the treene,
And olde Saturnus, with his frosty face
With chilling cold had pearst the tender greene. ~ Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

  • 2 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC) but this might be better as a suggestion towards the end of fall, rather than in spring...

And sorrowing I to see the sommer flowers,
The lively greene, the lusty lease, forlorne,
The sturdy trees so shattred with the showers,
The fieldes so fade, that florisht so beforne:
It taught mee well, all earthly things be borne
To dye the death: for nought long time may last:
The sommer's beauty yeeldes to winter's blast. ~ Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

  • 2 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

His drinke, the running streame, his cup, the bare
Of his palme cloasde, his bed, the hard cold ground:
To this poore life was Misery ybound. ~ Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

  • 3 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Crookebackt hee was, toothshaken, and blere eyed,
Went on three feete, and somtyme, crept on fowre,
With olde lame boanes, that ratled by his syde,
His scalpe all pild, and hee with eld forlore:
His withred fist still knocking at Death's dore,
Fumbling, and driveling, as hee drawes his breath,
For briefe, the shape and messenger of Death. ~ Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

  • 3 Zarbon 04:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Conditions are seldom ideal, and if one waits long enough for ideal conditions one is just making excuses. ~ Bernd Heinrich

  • 3 Kalki 00:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:19, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. ~ Elbert Hubbard
2005
Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble worker in the Lord's vineyard. The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. ~ Pope Benedict XVI (recent papal election)
2006
Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~ Dinah Craik (born 20 April 1826)
2007
It may often be noticed, the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away from the slightest whiff of the odour of un-sanctity. The good are ever the most charitable, the pure are the most brave. ~ Dinah Craik
2008
The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. ... Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. ~ Peter S. Beagle in The Last Unicorn
2009
Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people — as may be noticed of most young children — does truth, this rigid, literal veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and bitter experience of years. ~ Dinah Craik
2010

[edit] Suggestions

Society, in the aggregate, is no fool. It is astonishing what an amount of "eccentricity" it will stand from anybody who takes the bull by the horns, too fearless or too indifferent to think of consequences. ~ Dinah Craik

  • 3 Kalki 18:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
  • 4 InvisibleSun 07:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

There was never a night that had no morn. ~ Dinah Craik

  • 3 Kalki 18:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean towards a 4, but for tactical reasons ranking the first Craik quote a 4 for this year.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 07:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

If freedom is short of weapons, we must compensate with willpower. ~ Adolf Hitler (born April 20)

  • 3 Zarbon 06:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC) The statements and innumerable hypocrisies of Hitler are not such things as if find to be great material for qoute of the day.

I have not come into this world to make men better, but to make use of their weaknesses. ~ Adolf Hitler (born April 20)

  • 3 Zarbon 06:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC) I might have some desire to use this eventually, but no strong desire to use anything by Hitler for quote of the day.

The god of war has gone over to the other side. ~ Adolf Hitler (born April 20)

  • 4 Zarbon 06:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC) I have some desire to use this eventually, but no desire to use it any time soon.

Life never forgives weaknesses. ~ Adolf Hitler (born April 20)

  • 3 Zarbon 06:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC) I might have some desire to use this eventually, but no strong desire to use anything by Hitler for quote of the day.

Schmendrick stepped out into the open and said a few words. They were short words, undistinguished either by melody or harshness, and Schmendrick himself could not hear them for the Red Bull's dreadful bawling. But he knew what they meant, and he knew exactly how to say them, and he knew that he could say them again when he wanted to, in the same way or in a different way. Now he spoke them gently and with joy, and as did so he felt his immortality fall from him like an armour, or like a shroud. ~ Peter S. Beagle in The Last Unicorn

The rebels are not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be. ... In all their wars against the French they never showed such conduct, attention, and perseverance as they do now. ~ General Thomas Gage, on the Siege of Boston, which began on 20 April 1776

  • 3 Kalki 20:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

My people are in the world again. No sorrow will live in my heart as long as that joy — save one, and I thank you for that, too. ~ Peter S. Beagle in The Last Unicorn

  • 2 Kalki 00:58, 18 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3 or an eventual 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 15:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The Unicorn Sonata ... tells us that our true home is often right around the corner, if we'd only open our eyes — and our ears — to find it. ~ Peter S. Beagle

  • 3 Kalki 00:58, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do. ~ Molière
2005
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. ~ John Muir (born 21 April 1838)
2006
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. ~ John Muir (born 21 April 1838)
2007
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. ~ Charlotte Brontë
2008
How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make — leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone — we all dwell in a house of one room — the world with the firmament for its roof — and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track. ~ John Muir
2009
We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality. ~ J. G. Ballard
2010

[edit] Suggestions

Is not the real experience of each individual very limited? And, if a writer dwells upon that solely or principally, is he not in danger of repeating himself, and also of becoming an egotist? Then, too, imagination is a strong, restless faculty, which claims to be heard and exercised: are we to be quite deaf to her cry, and insensate to her struggles? When she shows us bright pictures, are we never to look at them, and try to reproduce them? And when she is eloquent, and speaks rapidly and urgently in our ear, are we not to write to her dictation? ~ Charlotte Brontë (born April 21, 1816)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 06:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC) * 4 Kalki 20:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It is not violence that best overcomes hate — nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury. ~ Charlotte Brontë

No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them. ~ John Muir (born April 21, 1838)

A barrister's job is to put the case for the defense as effectively and clearly as would his client if he had an advocate's skills. The barrister's belief or disbelief in the truth of the story is irrelevant: it's for the jury to decide this often difficult question. ~ John Mortimer (born April 21, 1923)

A "war against terrorism" is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism. ~ John Mortimer

Beliefs about how you live your life, matters of private decision, views best kept for private enjoyment, prejudice or entertainment, can't be imposed by the operation of criminal law. Attempts to enforce such views can only make the government the subject of ridicule. ~ John Mortimer

I often said that never in the history of the world did one man receive so much faith and trust as Hitler. Similary, no one has ever betrayed so many people and abused so much good faith as he did. ~ Hans Fritzsche (born April 21)

  • 3 Zarbon 04:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 20:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

What I would like to emanate from the darkness of this tragedy is one spark of life. I mean, the realization that crime does not begin when you murder people. Crime begins with propaganda, even if such propaganda is for a good cause. The moment propaganda turns against another nation or against any human being, evil starts. ~ Hans Fritzsche

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC) but trimmed to begin at "Crime does not begin when you murder people..."

The mind, if slackened even a little, will cause defeat, the same as fearing the opponent will make you unable to use full strength. ~ Kyuzo Mifune

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

True spirit of Judo is nothing but the gentle and diligent free spirit. Judo rests on flexible action of mind and body. The word flexible however never means weakness but something more like adaptability and open-mindedness. Gentleness always overcomes strength. ~ Kyuzo Mifune

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The weed crushed and pressed by the heavy rock may slowly and gently grow up anew helped by the fresh air, sunshine, and sympathetic rain. On the other hand, the rock is often broken through exposure to nature and weathering. Life is a strong power to grow in tenderness; this fact may be considered as having a close relation with human life. At the same time tenderness has sometimes stronger power against stiffness or hardening due to extreme strain. ~ Kyuzo Mifune

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain;
His blood red banner streams afar:
Who follows in His train? ~ Reginald Heber

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC) but would extend this to include the lines which follow it: Who best can drink his cup of woe,
    Triumphant over pain,
    Who patient bears his cross below,
    He follows in His train.

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee:
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty!
God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity. ~ Reginald Heber

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Death rides on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower. ~ Reginald Heber

  • 3 and lean toward 4. Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC) but would extend this to include more context, and in extended form might eventually rank it at 3 or even 4:
Beneath our feet and o'er our head
Is equal warning given:
Beneath us lie the countless dead,
Above us is the heaven!

Death rides on every passing breeze,
And lurks in every flower;
Each season has its own disease,
Its peril every hour.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. ~ Garrett Hardin

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart. ~ Garrett Hardin

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming. Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce; it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies. However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics; ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious. An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion. ~ Garrett Hardin

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

It may sound surprising when I say, on the basis of my own clinical practice as well as that of my psychological and psychiatric colleagues, that the chief problem of people in the middle decade of the twentieth century is emptiness. ~ Rollo May

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The human being cannot live in a condition of emptiness for very long: if he is not growing toward something, he does not merely stagnate; the pent-up potentialities turn into morbidity and despair, and eventually into destructive activities. ~ Rollo May

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves. ~ Rollo May

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

We define religion as the assumption that life has meaning. Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one's total orientation to life. Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One's religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for. ~ Rollo May

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

Memory is not just the imprint of the past time upon us; it is the keeper of what is meaningful for our deepest hopes and fears. ~ Rollo May

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before. ~ Rollo May

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Imagination is the outreaching of mind . . . . the bombardment of the conscious mind with ideas, impulses, images and every sort of psychic phenomena welling up from the preconscious. It is the capacity to "dream dreams and see visions . . . . ~ Rollo May

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You can live without a father who accepts you, but you cannot live without a world that makes some sense to you. ~ Rollo May

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

If we admit our depression openly and freely, those around us get from it an experience of freedom rather than the depression itself. ~ Rollo May

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC) but would extend it to :

We are more apt to feel depressed by the perpetually smiling individual than the one who is honestly sad. If we admit our depression openly and freely, those around us get from it an experience of freedom rather than the depression itself.

I think Dostoevsky was right, that every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, this is me and the damned world can go to hell. ~ Rollo May

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 for this version, because it is not fully sourced with an original citation, and might very likely be a paraphrase of a statement recorded in a published interview which I would give a 3:
Therapy isn't curing somebody of something; it is a means of helping a person explore himself, his life, his consciousness. My purpose as a therapist is to find out what it means to be human. Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, "This is me and the world be damned!" Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society — Socrates, Christ, Freud, all the way down the line.

I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly. ~ Catherine II of Russia

OR

I praise loudly. I blame softly. ~ Catherine II of Russia

  • 3 for both versions. Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

Power without a nation's confidence is nothing. ~ Catherine II of Russia

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

It is better to be subject to the Laws under one Master, than to be subservient to many. ~ Catherine II of Russia

  • 4 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

To tempt, and to be tempted, are things very nearly allied, and, in spite of the finest maxims of morality impressed upon the mind, whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent its being excited. ~ Catherine II of Russia

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth. ~ Peter Abelard

  • 2 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

In many churches Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone! ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

  • 3 Zarbon 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every State which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the Northern forests who were. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walking, 1862

  • 4 It is the traditional date that Romulus and Remus founded Rome SuperJew 08:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 14:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC) but would probably prefer some other quotes on the subject of Romulus and Remus


2004
I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. ~ Anne Frank
2005
Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. ~ Immanuel Kant (born 22 April 1724)
2006
I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more. ~ Vladimir Nabokov (born 22 April 1899) {10 April O.S.}
2007
It is certainly not then — not in dreams — but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction. ~ Vladimir Nabokov
2008
There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew. ~ Marshall McLuhan (quote for Earth Day)
2009
The death of dogma is the birth of morality. ~ Immanuel Kant
2010

[edit] Suggestions

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~ E. B. White (quote for Earth Day)

  • 3 Kalki 21:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. ... We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it. ~ Wendell Berry (quote for Earth Day)

The earth is what we all have in common ... it is what we are made of and what we live from, and we cannot damage it without damaging those with whom we share it. ~ Wendell Berry (quote for Earth Day)

Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment. ~ Immanuel Kant

  • 3 Kalki 21:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particularly the least harmful of all that may be called freedom, namely, the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matter. ~ Immanuel Kant

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. ~ Immanuel Kant

Her intense and pure religiousness took the form of her having equal faith in the existence of another world and in the impossibility of comprehending it in terms of earthly life. All one could do was to glimpse, amid the haze and the chimeras, something real ahead, just as persons endowed with an unusual persistence of diurnal cerebration are able to perceive in their deepest sleep, somewhere beyond the throes of an entangled and inept nightmare, the ordered reality of the waking hour. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

  • 3 Kalki 21:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

What is this jest in majesty? This ass in passion? How do God and Devil combine to form a live dog? ~ Vladimir Nabokov

And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress. ~ Robert Oppenheimer (born April 22)

  • 3 because the regression of science is the death of mankind. Zarbon 22:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC) but trimmed of the initial "And".

It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so. ~ Robert Oppenheimer (born April 22)

  • 3 because the entire world is full of people who have sheer hatred for one another and that is moreso a fact than anything else. The very prevention of this hatred will result in even worse a fate for everyone...maintaining that prevention can end up being deadlier than the actual act which will send one to "hell". Zarbon 22:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I need physics more than friends. ~ Robert Oppenheimer (born April 22)

  • 3 because friends are plenty, but physics will allow for much more. Zarbon 22:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I become Death, the destroyer of worlds." ~ Robert Oppenheimer (born April 22)

  • 4 for the full version or just trimmed to "Now I become Death, the destroyer of worlds" in reference to the old scripture and the usage of the atomic bomb as a dual dynamic. But 4 either way. Zarbon 03:04, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC) for full version only.

Man's consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but creates it. ~ Vladimir Lenin

  • 3 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i.e., he must be a dialectical materialist. ~ Vladimir Lenin

  • 2 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

One cannot live in society and be free from society. ~ Vladimir Lenin

  • 3 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong. ~ Vladimir Lenin

  • 3 because for better or for worse, history repeats itself. Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. ~ Vladimir Lenin

  • 2 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The state does not function as desired. The car does not obey. A man is at the wheel and he seems to lead it, but the car does not drive in the desired direction. It moves as another force wishes. ~ Vladimir Lenin

  • 2 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is an episode in a man's. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

  • 2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

  • 3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

  • 2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

  • 2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Men do not change; they unmask themselves. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

  • 3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

To whom nothing is given, of him can nothing be required. ~ Henry Fielding

  • 3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough;
I've done my duty, and I've done no more. ~ Henry Fielding

  • 3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more. ~ Henry Fielding

  • 2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species. ~ Henry Fielding

  • 2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It hath been often said, that it is not death, but dying which is terrible. ~ Henry Fielding

  • 2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

A good face they say, is a letter of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest, as ever to send men with these false recommendations into the World! ~ Henry Fielding

  • 2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple. ~ Charles Mingus

  • 3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. ~ Charles Mingus

  • 2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time. ~ Charles Mingus

  • 3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go. ~ Martha Washington
2005
We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. ~ "Prospero" in The Tempest by William Shakespeare (birth traditionally celebrated 23 April 1564, died 23 April 1616 O.S.)
2006
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. ~ William Shakespeare in As You Like It (birth traditionally celebrated 23 April 1564, died 23 April 1616 O.S.)
2007
We defy augury; there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. ~ "Hamlet" in Hamlet by William Shakespeare
2008
We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again:
And by that destiny, to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
~ William Shakespeare in The Tempest ~
2009

[edit] Suggestions

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
~ William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
~ William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

  • 4 InvisibleSun 05:34, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 20:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 00:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.
~ William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
~ "Ariel" in The Tempest by William Shakespeare~

  • 3 Kalki 20:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward an eventual 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!
~ "Miranda" in The Tempest by William Shakespeare ~

  • 3 Kalki 20:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward an eventual 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent. ~ George Steiner (born April 23, 1929)

It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. These are often as highly structured and selective as myths. Images and symbolic constructs of the past are imprinted, almost in the manner of genetic information, on our sensibility. ~ George Steiner

For many human beings, religion has been the music which they believe in. ~ George Steiner

We are still waging Peloponnesian wars. Our control of the material world and our positive science have grown fantastically. But our very achievements turn against us, making politics more random and wars more bestial. ~ George Steiner

We cannot turn back. We cannot choose the dreams of unknowing. We shall, I expect, open the last door in the castle, even if it leads, perhaps because it leads, on to realities which are beyond the reach of human comprehension and control. And we shall do so with that desolate clairvoyance, so marvellously rendered in Bartok's music, because opening doors is the tragic merit of our identity. ~ George Steiner

The ordinary man casts a shadow. In a way we do not quite understand, the man of genius casts light. Instinctively, we flinch from this light. We assure ourselves that genius must pay a terrible price. Often history bears us out: the creator, the supreme artist, the master of politics carries the scars of his greatness. ~ George Steiner

  • 3 Kalki 20:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —
With those who shaped him to the thing he is —
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world.
After the silence of the centuries?
~ Edwin Markham ~

  • 3 Kalki 20:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes they are. ~ Chauncey Depew

To create is to destroy. To induce life is to destroy life. ~ Halldór Laxness

The difference between a novelist and a historian is this: that the former tells lies deliberately and for the fun of it; the historian tells lies in his simplicity and imagines he is telling the truth. ~ Halldór Laxness

All gods are equally good except the god that answers prayers, because he is nowhere. ~ Halldór Laxness

War has always been the chief amusement of mankind. Other amusements are a surrogate for war. ~ Halldór Laxness

I feel that my duty has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country. ~ James Buchanan

What is right and what is practicable are two different things. ~ James Buchanan

Sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed. ~ James Buchanan

Abstract propositions should never be discussed by a legislative body. ~ James Buchanan

  • 2 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I have no regret for any public act of my life, and history will vindicate my memory. ~ James Buchanan

  • 3 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Time is a great corrective. Political subjects which but a few years ago excited and exasperated the public mind have passed away and are now nearly forgotten. ~ James Buchanan

Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with. ~ Max Planck

We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future. ~ Max Planck

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. ~ Max Planck

  • 2 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Both Religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view. ~ Max Planck

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. ~ Max Planck

Truth never triumphs — its opponents just die out. ~ Max Planck

It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him. ~ Max Planck

  • 3 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. ~ Max Planck

  • 3 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

We may conclude that from what science teaches us, there is in nature an order independent of man's existence, a meaningful order to which nature and man are subordinate. ~ Max Planck

  • 2 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The city, that monster with a hundred mouths and a thousand ears, a monster that knows nothing but says everything, had written me off. ~ Jean-Dominique Bauby

  • 2 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC) seems too inclomplete an assertion.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I would not so dishonour God as to lend my voice to perpetuate all the mad and foolish things which men have dared to say of Him. I believe that we may find in the Bible the highest and purest religion most of all in the history of Him in whose name we all are called. His religion — not the Christian religion, but the religion of Christ — the poor man's gospel; the message of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of love; and, oh, how gladly would I spend my life, in season and out of season, in preaching this! But I must have no hell terrors, none of these fear doctrines; they were not in the early creeds, God knows whether they were ever in the early gospels, or ever passed His lips. He went down to hell, but it was to break the chains, not to bind them. ~ James Anthony Froude

OR

He went down to hell, but it was to break the chains, not to bind them. ~ James Anthony Froude

  • 3 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC) lacks context in this form.
  • 1 InvisibleSun 23:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I cut a hole in my heart and wrote with the blood. ~ James Anthony Froude

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last. ~ James Anthony Froude

  • 2 Zarbon 19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC) but most of this was already used.


2004 
In war, you win or lose, live or die — and the difference is just an eyelash. ~ Douglas MacArthur
2005 
Everything seems an echo of something else. ~ Robert Penn Warren (born 24 April 1905)
2006 
The end of man is knowledge but there's one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it would save him. ~ Robert Penn Warren (born 24 April 1905)
2007
I judge a man by his actions with men, much more than by his declarations Godwards. When I find him to be envious, carping, spiteful, hating the successes of others, and complaining that the world has never done enough for him, I am apt to doubt whether his humility before God will atone for his want of manliness. ~ Anthony Trollope
2008
The poem... is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see — it is, rather, a light by which we may see — and what we see is life. ~ Robert Penn Warren
2009
The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it. ~ Vincent de Paul

[edit] Suggestions

There can only be peace when they will start to love their children more than they hate us. ~ Golda Meir

  • 3. Nominated for Israel Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzma'ut) 2007. LordAmeth 18:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 16:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC) 3 Kalki 11:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC) No longer associated with this date — Yom Ha'atzmaut, falls on 8 May this year, and there remains no definite source for this statement. In 2007 I ranked it 3 and remarked: leaning towards a four, but only for 2007, as the Gregorian date varies for Yom Ha'atzma'ut, which is based on the Hebrew calendar. It also fits in well with the previous QOTD by Shakespeare. But I would prefer to use one of the better sourced or more widely used variants:
Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.
or
Peace will come when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us.
Despite believing these sentiments probably originated with a statement of Meir somewhere, and liking this much in a more universal sense, of there being peace when people start loving their children more than they hate each other, there is not yet a definitely reliable source for this, and I am declining to use it for this date. Hopefully some definite source of Meir's exact statement can be found in the months ahead, and this can be used at some other date. ~ Kalki 21:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 00:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Life is so unlike theory. ~ Anthony Trollope (born 24 April 1815)

There is no such mischievous nonsense in all the world as equality. What men ought to want is liberty. ~ Anthony Trollope

  • 3 Kalki 11:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I cannot hold with those who wish to put down the insignificant chatter of the world. ~ Anthony Trollope

The best way to be thankful is to use the goods the gods provide you. ~ Anthony Trollope

In separateness only does love learn definition. ~ Robert Penn Warren

So little time we live in Time,
And we learn all so painfully,
That we may spare this hour's term
To practice for Eternity.
~ Robert Penn Warren ~

  • 3 Kalki 22:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4
  • 1 Zarbon 00:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

...the basic principles of the military services are unchangeable. Courage and candor, obedience and comradeship, love of fatherland and loyalty to the State: these are ever the distinguishing characteristics of the soldier and sailor. Building character through intelligent training and education is always the first and greatest goal. ~ Erich Raeder

But optics sharp it needs, I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.
~ John Trumbull

As though there were a tie
And obligation to posterity.
We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse:
What has posterity done for us.
That we, lest they their rights should lose,
Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?
~ John Trumbull

No man e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law.
~ John Trumbull

You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. and the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them. ~ Vincent de Paul

However great the work that God may achieve by an individual, he must not indulge in self-satisfaction. He ought rather to be all the more humbled, seeing himself merely as a tool which God has made use of. ~ Vincent de Paul

  • 3 Zarbon 23:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer. ~ Clement Freud

  • 3 Zarbon 23:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

In all things there must be order, but it must of such a kind as is possible to observe...to see a man burnt for doing as he thought right, harms the people, for this is a matter of conscience. ~ William the Silent

  • 3 Zarbon 23:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It is not possible for me to bear alone such labours and the burden of such weighty cares as press on me from hour to hour, without one man at my side to help me. I have not a soul to aid me in all my anxieties and toils. ~ William the Silent

  • 2 Zarbon 23:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

We must have patience and not lose heart, submitting to the will of God, and striving incessantly, as I have resolved to do, come what may. ~ William the Silent

  • 2 Zarbon 23:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to persevere. ~ William the Silent

  • 3 Zarbon 23:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

For me nature is not a landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces - an event rather than an appearance. ~ Bridget Riley

  • 2 Zarbon 23:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you see law and order? There is nothing but disorder, and instead of law there is the illusion of security. It is an illusion because it is built on a long history of injustices: racism, criminality, and the genocide of millions. Many people say it is insane to resist the system, but actually, it is insane not to. ~ Mumia Abu-Jamal

  • 2 Zarbon 23:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none. ~ Mumia Abu-Jamal

  • 2 Zarbon 23:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC) such is conventional politics, and conventional political rhetoric, but there are notions of politics and rhetoric far beyond such tripe and such tropes.


2004
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. ~ Gautama Buddha
2005
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices — just recognize them. ~ Edward R. Murrow (born 25 April 1908)
2006
The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue. ~ Edward R. Murrow (born 25 April 1908)
2007
It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts. ~ Boris Yeltsin (recent death)
2008
The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it. ~ Edward R. Murrow
2009
I will either find a way, or make one. ~ Hannibal
2010

[edit] Suggestions

In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. ~ Solomon

  • 3 because to know more is to suffer more, knowledge heightens suffering, beautiful. Zarbon 16:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading. ~ Tertullian

  • 3 because teaching can lead to truth rather than blind persuasion. Zarbon 16:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 01:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3
  • 3 Sketchmoose 20:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine. ~ Tertullian

  • 3 because discipline is a beautiful principle all by itself. Zarbon 16:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 01:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC) * 2 Kalki 23:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Out of the frying pan into the fire. ~ Tertullian

  • 3 because when trying to avoid one disaster, one may fall into another one that is much worse. Beautiful imagery to go with climactic moral. Zarbon 16:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 01:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease. ~ Sun Tzu

  • 3 because a smart victory is respected. Zarbon 17:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. ~ Sun Tzu

  • 3 because a smart warrior will know how to trick his enemy. Zarbon 17:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

It is best to keep one’s own state intact; to crush the enemy’s state is only second best. ~ Sun Tzu

  • 3 because maintaining one's own control and sustaining conditions are very important, moreso than defeating the opponent. Zarbon 17:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.

Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions. ~ Sun Tzu

  • 3 because a swift victory is respected. Zarbon 17:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.

No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices. ~ Edward R. Murrow

  • 3 Kalki 00:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 02:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Sketchmoose 20:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Man is one name belonging to every nation upon earth. In them all is one soul though many tongues. Every country has its own language, yet the subjects of which the untutored soul speaks are the same everywhere. ~ Tertullian

  • 3 Kalki 01:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 02:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est.
It is to be believed because it is absurd.
~ Tertullian ~

  • 2 Kalki 01:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC) but leaning toward an eventual 3 or even a 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 02:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Reason, in fact, is a thing of God, inasmuch as there is nothing which God the Maker of all has not provided, disposed, ordained by reason — nothing which He has not willed should be handled and understood by reason. All, therefore, who are ignorant of God, must necessarily be ignorant also of a thing which is His, because no treasure-house at all is accessible to strangers. And thus, voyaging all the universal course of life without the rudder of reason, they know not how to shun the hurricane which is impending over the world. ~ Tertullian

  • 3 Kalki 01:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 02:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Sketchmoose 20:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Cum ergo spiritus Dei descendit, indiuidua patientia comitatur eum.
When God's Spirit descends, then Patience accompanies Him indivisibly.
~ Tertullian ~

  • 3 Kalki 01:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 02:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
Nothing is better than the unintended humor of reality. ~ Steve Allen
2005
If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein (born 26 April 1889)
2006
Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to. ~ Marcus Aurelius (born 26 April 121)
2007
They say that each generation inherits from those that have gone before; if this were so there would be no limit to man's improvements or to his power of reaching perfection. But he is very far from receiving intact that storehouse of knowledge which the centuries have piled up before him; he may perfect some inventions, but in others, he lags behind the originators, and a great many inventions have been lost entirely. What he gains on the one hand, he loses on the other. ~ Eugène Delacroix
2008
I had the good fortune and opportunity to come home and to tell the truth; many soldiers, like Pat Tillman... did not have that opportunity. The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype. ~ Jessica Lynch (date of birth)
2009
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.
If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein ~
2010

Quotes by people born on this day, already used as QOTD:

  • If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; if we begin with doubts, and are patient, we shall end in certainties. ~ Marcus Aurelius

[edit] Suggestions

When you are outraged by somebody's impudence, ask yourself at once, "Can the world exist without impudent people?" It cannot; so do not ask for impossibilities. ~ Marcus Aurelius

  • 3 Kalki 00:22, 26 April 2006 (UTC) (date of birth)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 00:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web. ~ Marcus Aurelius

  • 3 Kalki 00:22, 26 April 2006 (UTC) (date of birth) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

If mind is common to us, then also the reason, whereby we are reasoning beings, is common. If this be so, then also the reason which enjoins what is to be done or left undone is common. If this be so, law also is common; if this be so, we are citizens; if this be so, we are partakers in one constitution; if this be so, the Universe is a kind of Commonwealth. ~ Marcus Aurelius

  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 00:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe it safe to say that all progress must lead, not to further progress, but finally to the negation of progress, a return to the point of departure. ~ Eugène Delacroix (born April 26, 1798)

Nature creates unity even in the parts of a whole. ~ Eugène Delacroix

Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein (born April 26, 1889)

There are a few of us —madmen all! —who are in love with knowing, who would sell the last shirt from our backs for one small truth, one tiny star-fire to light up the murk and mystery of what we call our life… We may go blind before we see it, that's the haunting— ~ Morris West

  • 2 Zarbon 23:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

No man —prince, peasant, pope, —has all the light, who says else is a mountebank. I claim no private lien on truth, only a liberty to seek it, prove it in debate, and to be wrong a thousand times to reach a single rightness. ~ Morris West

  • 3 Zarbon 23:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

If God be God and man a creature made in image of the divine intelligence, his noblest function is the search for truth. ~ Morris West

  • 3 Zarbon 23:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price…. One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying. ~ Morris West

  • 3 Zarbon 23:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine. ~ Morris West

  • 3 Zarbon 23:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 4 Malakias 13:33, 07 July 2009 (UTC)

The hardest freedom to maintain is the freedom of making mistakes. ~ Morris West

  • 2 Zarbon 23:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

My soul is full of whispered song,—
My blindness is my sight;
The shadows that I feared so long
Are full of life and light. ~ Alice Cary

  • 3 Zarbon 23:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,—
Take, I give it willingly;
For, invisible to thee,
Spirits twain have crossed with me. ~ Ludwig Uhland

  • 2 Zarbon 23:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it. ~ Anatole France
2005
Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft (born 27 April 1759)
2006
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. ~ Edward Gibbon (born 27 April 1737 O.S. but actually 8 May in the Gregorian Calendar — confusions existed when this choice was made.)
2007
Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences. ~ Ulysses S. Grant
2008
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools. ~ Herbert Spencer
2009
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft
2010

[edit] Suggestions

Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity. Instead of civilization being artificial, it is part of nature; all of a piece with the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower. ~ Herbert Spencer (born April 27, 1820)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 22:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong. ~ Herbert Spencer

In my view, the composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify human life and defend it. He must be a citizen first and foremost, so that his art might consciously extol human life and lead man to a radiant future. Such is the immutable code of art as I see it. ~ Sergei Prokofiev (born April 27, 1891)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 22:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 4 Kalki 01:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC) * 3 Kalki 23:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom's cause.
~ Cecil Day Lewis (born April 27, 1904)

Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. ~ Coretta Scott King (born April 27, 1927)

When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) (Eastern Orthodox Easter 2008)

  • 2 Kalki 01:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC) * 4 Kalki 23:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC) no longer strongly related to the date.
  • 2 but I would have given it a 3 if it were trimmed to the last bit of the quote. I like this quote because it speaks of determination, a respectable quality, to endure and be saved in turn. Zarbon 00:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

What I did in my youth is hundreds of times easier today. Technology breeds crime. ~ Frank Abagnale

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

God gave us Lincoln and Liberty, let us fight for both. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately you occasionally find men disgrace labor. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

  • 3 Zarbon 17:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 04:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

  • 3 and lean toward 4. Zarbon 17:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 04:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse—
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.
~ Cecil Day Lewis

Tempt me no more, for I
Have known the lightning's hour,
The poet's inward pride,
The certainty of power.
~ Cecil Day Lewis

The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the earth on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church. ~ Ferdinand Magellan (date of death)

  • 3 if this is truly properly attributed to Magellan. Zarbon 17:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • The available evidence indicates it to probably be a misattribution, and thus unacceptable. ~ Kalki 04:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


2004
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
2005
It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. ~ Terry Pratchett (born 28 April 1948)
2006
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost. ~ Karl Kraus (born 28 April 1874)
2007
The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret. ~ Terry Pratchett
2008
The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp. ~ Terry Pratchett
2009
Too much magic could wrap time and space around itself, and that wasn't good news for the kind of person who had grown used to things like effects following things like causes. ~ Terry Pratchett in Sourcery ~
2010

Quotes by people born on this day, already used as QOTD:

  • How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read. ~ Karl Kraus

[edit] Suggestions

My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious. ~ Karl Kraus

  • 3 Kalki 01:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 00:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis. ~ Karl Kraus

  • 3 Kalki 01:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 00:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Love and art do not embrace what is beautiful but what is is made beautiful by this embrace. ~ Karl Kraus

  • 3 Kalki 01:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC) (I have modified this from its current listing on the Kraus page, because I believe this form makes more sense. We have at least about a year to check out which is more accurate depiction of the German original.)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 pending resolution of this form of the quote. - InvisibleSun 10:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. ~ Terry Pratchett

Everything makes sense a bit at a time. But when you try to think of it all at once, it comes out wrong. ~ Terry Pratchett

Soup is never eaten as hot as it is cooked. ~ Heinrich Müller (born April 28)

  • 2 Zarbon 17:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1. The quote is unsourced and should therefore be avoided as a QOTD choice. - InvisibleSun 10:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
    • 1 InvisibleSun 23:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
    • SOURCE: The SS, Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945 - Page 33 by Gerald Reitlinger - History - 1989 (I can provide sources for all the quotes if they are necessary) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zarbon (talk • contribs) at 17:56 on April 27, 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 02:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Let us not allow disorder enter where order prevails. ~ António de Oliveira Salazar (born April 28)

  • 2 Zarbon 04:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1. The quote is unsourced and should therefore be avoided as a QOTD choice. - InvisibleSun 10:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 02:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

If you knew how hard it is to command, you would only want to obey. ~ António de Oliveira Salazar (born April 28)

  • 2 because most of the time, it is best to follow orders. Zarbon 06:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 02:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 0.

I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking. ~ Saddam Hussein


2004
Prejudice comes from being in the dark; sunlight disinfects it. ~ Muhammad Ali
2005
Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason. ~ Jerry Seinfeld (born April 29 1954)
2006
Despite the best that has been done by everyone — the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State, and the devoted service of Our one hundred million people — the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest. ~ Hirohito (born 29 April 29 1901)
2007
I have been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.
~ Taliesin ~ (listed as born this date on the WIkipedia date page; traditionally said to have been born just before Beltane — the date of which varies slightly among traditions.)
2008
The advance of science is not comparable to the changes of a city, where old edifices are pitilessly torn down to give place to new, but to the continuous evolution of zoologic types which develop ceaselessly and end by becoming unrecognizable to the common sight, but where an expert eye finds always traces of the prior work of the past centuries. ~ Henri Poincaré (born April 29, 1854)
2009
He who hopes to grow in spirit
will have to transcend obedience and respect.
He'll hold to some laws
but he'll mostly violate
both law and custom, and go beyond
the established, inadequate norm.
~ Constantine P. Cavafy ~
2010

[edit] Suggestions

If all the parts of the universe are interchained in a certain measure, any one phenomenon will not be the effect of a single cause, but the resultant of causes infinitely numerous. ~ Henri Poincaré

  • 3 InvisibleSun 11:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 06:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 Ningauble 11:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. ~ Henri Poincaré

  • 3 InvisibleSun 11:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 06:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4,
  • 2.5 Ningauble 11:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
~ Constantine P. Cavafy (born April 29, 1863)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 11:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 06:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 07:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2.5 Ningauble 11:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

We won't be deceived
by words such as Indispensable, Unique, and Great.
Someone else indispensable and unique and great
can always be found at a moment's notice.
~ Constantine P. Cavafy ~

  • 3 Kalki 07:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 09:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 14:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Ningauble 11:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

When I consider the dead and their families, I cannot repress my mental agony. ~ Hirohito (born April 29)

It goes without saying that it is unbearable for me to see the brave and loyal fighting men of Japan disarmed. It is equally unbearable that others who have rendered me devoted service should now be punished as instigators of the war. Nevertheless, the time has come to bear the unbearable. ~ Hirohito (born April 29)

  • 3 because victory is a camouflage and sometimes true victory is had in admitting to one's defeat. Zarbon 14:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 04:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3
  • 2 Ningauble 11:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp. ~ Henri Poincaré

  • 3 Kalki 18:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

A scientist worthy of the name, above all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature. ~ Henri Poincaré

  • 3 Kalki 18:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The principal aim of mathematical education is to develop certain faculties of the mind, and among these intuition is not the least precious. It is through it that the mathematical world remains in touch with the real world, and even if pure mathematics could do without it, we should still have to have recourse to it to fill up the gulf that separates the symbol from reality. ~ Henri Poincaré

  • 3 Kalki 18:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. ~ Henri Poincaré

  • 3 Kalki 18:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better. ~ Henri Poincaré

  • 3 Kalki 18:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.


2004
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. ~ Robert J. Hanlon
2005
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss (born 30 April 1777)
2006
You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss (born 30 April 1777)
2007
In a political struggle, never get personal — else the dagger digs too deep. ~ Jack Valenti (recent death)
2008
The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools. ~ Larry Niven
2009
Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance — embracing all opposites. ~ Taisen Deshimaru
2010

[edit] Suggestions

If freedom is short of weapons, we must compensate with willpower. ~ Adolf Hitler (died April 30)

  • 3 because one's willpower serves as a strong device for motivation, even when short of artillery. It is a magnificent source of attaining courage even in the darkest hour of the battle. Zarbon 06:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC) I hold that to even consider Hitler a spokesman for freedom in any admirable way is disgusting and contemptible. The type of "freedom" Hitler stood for was the freedom to oppress, the freedom to lie, the freedom to murder, and no matter how bold and brazen a liar and oppressor might be, or how strong they may become because of the will of other fools and cowards and the lack of will among many other fools and cowards, they are ultimately in many extreme ways craven fools and cowards themselves, who are afraid to speak, to hear, or to allow others to hear or to speak many important truths.
  • 1 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I have not come into this world to make men better, but to make use of their weaknesses. ~ Adolf Hitler (died April 30)

  • 3 Zarbon 06:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC) This quote seems to be a concise summary of many of Hitler's policies and attitudes, but I have no great desire to use it any time soon.
  • 1 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The god of war has gone over to the other side. ~ Adolf Hitler (died April 30)

  • 4 because it brings the Greek god Ares into play and it is only fitting that his reference be made when war's end is at hand. Zarbon 06:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 23:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC) 2 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC) might eventually rank this a 3 or even a 4, but not presently — no "god of war", or favor in battle has clearly gone to any "other" side, and though the recognition of the avoidable and ultimately detrimental effects of most military aggression is in many ways growing among many people, any final rejection of large scale military aggression between nations and major population groups seems to remain but a distant prospect.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Life never forgives weaknesses. ~ Adolf Hitler (died April 30)

  • 3 because life is brutal and difficult. Zarbon 06:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC) An apparent advocation of viciousness, but to a great extent I feel this applies to the vicious themselves, who despite the powers which they may come to wield amidst confused times are truly a weak-minded fools, who misuse, wastefully use and ultimately loose much of whatever power and potential they have.
    Life can indeed be very brutal and difficult, especially if it is made that way by fools who believe whatever paltry strength and will they might attain provides them some sort of right as well as the means to misuse it to needlessly and unjustly oppress others less powerful. It can also be very beautiful and splendid where most people are not so deluded as to follow paths of needless contention, destruction, and ultimate stupidity.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss (born April 30)

  • 2 because careful planning and preparedness is key to reaching one's goals. Zarbon 14:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC) because it speaks of the value of intuition as well as the importance of logic and effort.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal themselves in all their beauty only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss (born April 30)

  • 2 because those who are truly determined will unlock the beauty of science. Zarbon 14:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss

  • 3 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 16:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 4 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss

  • 3 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 16:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of science. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss

Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it. ~ Larry Niven

  • 3 Kalki 08:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 16:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give. ~ Taisen Deshimaru (date of death)

Think with your whole body. ~ Taisen Deshimaru (date of death)

Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance. ~ Taisen Deshimaru (date of death)

  • 2 Zarbon 06:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 18:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You have to practice until you die. ~ Taisen Deshimaru (date of death)

Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit. ~ Taisen Deshimaru (date of death)

If you are not happy here and now, you never will be. ~ Taisen Deshimaru (date of death)

  • 2 Zarbon 06:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 18:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or saki. Meditation is Drinking it. ~ Taisen Deshimaru (date of death)

We feel our shell keeps us safe, but it crushes us and others, and keeps out light and sun. ~ Taisen Deshimaru (date of death)


Ranking system:

4 : Excellent - should definitely be used. (Perhaps, at most, only one quote per day should be ranked thus by any user, as to avoid confusions.)
3 : Very Good - strong desire to see it used.
2 : Good - some desire to see it used.
1 : Acceptable - but with no particular desire to see it used.
0 : Not acceptable - not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
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