Wikiquote:Quote of the day/April

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Today is Friday, December 5, 2008; it is now 13:11 (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

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

[edit] Suggestions

All that we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown. ~ William Harvey (born April 1, 1578)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 08:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 ~ Kalki 20:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 23:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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

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

  • 0 Zarbon 23:10, 22 April 2008 (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)

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)

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

  • 3 Zarbon 13:44, 28 October 2008 (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)

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)

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches. ~ Otto von Bismarck

  • 4 Zarbon 13:44, 28 October 2008 (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

[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

Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. ~ Émile Zola (born 2 April 1840)

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)

  • 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


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

[edit] Suggestions

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

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

One sword keeps another in the sheath. ~ George Herbert

  • 3 Kalki 12:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 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


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

[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)

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. ~ Maya Angelou

  • 2 because cynicism at a young age is a negative quality. To actually know nothing is one thing, but to believe in nothing is bitterness. Zarbon 16:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Upon search, I have found that this quote was used on May 31, 2004. Zarbon 13:20, 8 May 2008 (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

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

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

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

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)

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)

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

  • 3 Zarbon 17:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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)

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)


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

[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)


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

[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)

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)
  • 4 Kalki 15:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC) 3 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a very strong lean towards a 4
  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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)

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)

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 ~


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

[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)
  • 2 Zarbon 23:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
~ Yip Harburg ~ (born 8 April 1896)

  • 3 Kalki 15:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:29, 22 April 2008 (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)

  • 2 because sometimes, everything isn't nice and peaceful. Sometimes, the use of force is required. Zarbon 05:02, 3 May 2008 (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)


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

[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

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

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 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


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

[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)

It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. ~ William Hazlitt

  • 3 InvisibleSun 11:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 because this is extremely true. No one is without fault. If ever a person of this caliber were to exist, it is true that this person would be alone. I love this one strongly. Zarbon 23:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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 ~

  • 3 Kalki 21:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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

  • 3 Kalki 21:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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 ~

  • 3 Kalki 21:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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)

  • 4 Zarbon 06:39, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Source: "Jesus and the Disinherited" - Page 74 - by Howard Thurman - Religion - 1996


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

[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

Unused suggestions initially made for 14 April 2007 relating to death of Kurt Vonnegut on 11 April 2007:

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)

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

  • 1 Zarbon 23:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Vonnegut also delivered at least 2 variants on this theme:

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."
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC
  • 2 Zarbon 23:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

So it goes. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

  • 1 Zarbon 23:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


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

[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

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


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

[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

I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. ~ 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

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)

  • 2 No longer connected with this date. InvisibleSun 05:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:45, 22 April 2008 (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

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 might 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)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:47, 22 April 2008 (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)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
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

[edit] Suggestions

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

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

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

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 the equation known as Euler's identity (Leonhard Euler born 15 April 1707)

  • 3 Kalki 00:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:49, 22 April 2008 (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

[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)


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

[edit] Suggestions

Love is an energy which exists of itself. It is its own va