Wikiquote:Quote of the day/August

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Today is Thursday, May 23, 2013; it is now 12:28 (UTC)


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This page lists quote of the day proposals specifically for dates in the month of August, 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: August 2008 - August 2009 - August 2010 - August 2011 - August 2012

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.
2003
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. ~ Aristotle
2004
Called or uncalled, God is there. ~ Ancient proverb, said to be Spartan, popularized by Carl Jung
  • selected by Kalki
    This is a translation of the Latin phrase Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit. which Jung used as an inscription on his house, and also on his tomb. It is also commonly translated as " Called or uncalled, God is present." or sometimes "Invoked or not invoked...", "Bidden or unbidden", or "Summoned or not summoned..." God is present.
2005
From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it. That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber trophies than all the stars in universal space. ~ Herman Melville (born 1 August 1819)
2006
And now we meet in an abandoned studio
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago
And you remember the jingles used to go
Oh, oh — You were the first one.
Oh, oh — You were the last one.
Video killed the radio star.
~ The Buggles ~
2007
People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. ~ Ingmar Bergman (recent death)
2008
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. ~ Herman Melville in Moby-Dick (born 1 August 1819)
2009
In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a sacred white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, — even though it be covertly, and by snatches. ~ Herman Melville
2010
It is — or seems to be — a wise sort of thing, to realise that all that happens to a man in this life is only by way of joke, especially his misfortunes, if he have them. And it is also worth bearing in mind, that the joke is passed round pretty liberally & impartially, so that not very many are entitled to fancy that they in particular are getting the worst of it. ~ Herman Melville
2011
There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is. ~ Herman Melville, in The Confidence-Man
2012
Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilise civilisation and christianise Christendom?
~ Herman Melville ~
2013 
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2004
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts... ~ William Shakespeare in As You Like It
2005
When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, and they never will because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains need to wake up. I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it. ~ "Serendipity" in Dogma, by Kevin Smith
2006
Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. ~ James Baldwin (born 2 August 1924)
2007
The moment always comes when, having collected one's ideas, certain images, an intuition of a certain kind of development — whether psychological or material — one must pass on to the actual realization. ~ Michelangelo Antonioni (recent death)
2008
Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace. ~ James Baldwin
2009
Religious feeling is as much a verity as any other part of human consciousness; and against it, on the subjective side, the waves of science beat in vain. ~ John Tyndall
2010
One writes out of one thing only — one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art. ~ James Baldwin
2011
Life is a wave, which in no two consecutive moments of its existence is composed of the same particles. ~ John Tyndall
2012
Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.
~ James Baldwin ~
2013 
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2004
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children. ~ Khalil Gibran
2005
When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist upon other planets throughout the universe. It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose. ~ Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904)
2006
Somewhere, he thought, on the long backtrack of history, the human race had accepted an insanity for a principle and had persisted in it until today that insanity-turned-principle stood ready to wipe out, if not the race itself, at least all of those things, both material and immaterial, that had been fashioned as symbols of humanity through many hard-won centuries. ~ Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904)
2007
There is a plan, it seems to me, that reaches out of the electron to the rim of the universe and what this plan may be or how it came about is beyond my feeble intellect. But if we are looking for something on which to pin our faith — and, indeed, our hope — the plan might well be it. I think we have thought too small and have been too afraid. ~ Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904)
2008
I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space. I have been concerned with where we, as a race, may be going and what may be our purpose in the universal scheme — if we have a purpose. In general, I believe we do, and perhaps an important one. ~ Clifford D. Simak
2009
I did not want to move. For I had the feeling that this was a place, once seen, that could not be seen again. If I left and then came back, it would not be the same; no matter how many times I might return to this particular spot the place and feeling would never be the same, something would be lost or something would be added, and there never would exist again, through all eternity, all the integrated factors that made it what it was in this magic moment. ~ Clifford D. Simak
2010
Perhaps there was no limit, there might, quite likely, be no such condition as the ultimate; there might be no time when any creature or any group of creatures could stop at any certain point and say, this is as far as we can go, there is no use of trying to go farther. For each new development produced, as side effects, so many other possibilities, so many other roads to travel, that with each step one took down any given road there were more paths to follow. There'd never be an end, he thought — no end to anything. ~ Clifford D. Simak
2011
Much of what we see in the universe … starts out as imaginary. Often you must imagine something before you can come to terms with it. ~ Clifford D. Simak
2012
We came into a homeless frontier, a place where we were not welcome, where nothing that lived was welcome, where thought and logic were abhorrent and we were frightened, but we went into this place because the universe lay before us, and if we were to know ourselves, we must know the universe...
~ Clifford D. Simak ~
2013 
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2003
I can't die. It would ruin my image. ~ Jack La Lanne
2004
We are defined by how we use our power. ~ Gerry Spence
2005
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~ (born 4 August 1792)
2006
If you divide suffering and dross, you may
Diminish till it is consumed away;
If you divide pleasure and love and thought,
Each part exceeds the whole; and we know not
How much, while any yet remains unshared...
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~
2007
In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man’s estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~
2008
Throughout American history, there have been moments that call on us to meet the challenges of an uncertain world, and pay whatever price is required to secure our freedom. ~ Barack Obama
2009
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~
2010
Contrary to the rumours that you've heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth. ~ Barack Obama
2011
I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together — unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction — towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren. ~ Barack Obama
2012
We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you. For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
~ Barack Obama ~
2013 
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2003
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. ~ Edsger Dijkstra
2004
Your strength is but an accident arising from the weakness of others. ~ Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
2005
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. ~ Mohandas Gandhi
2006
Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread... ~ Conrad Aiken (born 5 August 1889)
2007
There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. ~ Guy de Maupassant (born 5 August 1850)
2008
Those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force — they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (recent death)
2009
Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.
~ Wendell Berry ~
2010
'Tis true, my form is something odd
but blaming me, is blaming God,
Could I create myself anew
I would not fail in pleasing you.
~ Joseph Merrick ~ (born 5 August 1862)
2011
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. ~ Wendell Berry
2012
I am speaking of the life of a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children; who has undertaken to cherish it and do it no damage, not because he is duty-bound, but because he loves the world and loves his children; whose work serves the earth he lives on and from and with, and is therefore pleasurable and meaningful and unending; whose rewards are not deferred until "retirement," but arrive daily and seasonally out of the details of the life of their place; whose goal is the continuance of the life of the world, which for a while animates and contains them, and which they know they can never compass with their understanding or desire.
~ Wendell Berry ~
2013 
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2003
When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly. ~ Donald Douglas
2004
Character does count. For too long we have gotten by in a society that says the only thing right is to get by and the only thing wrong is to get caught. Character is doing what's right when nobody is looking... ~ J. C. Watts
2005
The Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
2006
One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underpriviliged. ~ Richard Hofstadter
2007
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

~ Alfred Tennyson ~

2008
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
~ Alfred Tennyson, "In Memoriam A.H.H." (born this day)
2009
The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another fly wide open. ~ Charles Fort
2010
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm;

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.
~ Alfred Tennyson ~

2011
Like an Aeolian harp that wakes
No certain air, but overtakes
Far thought with music that it makes:

Such seem'd the whisper at my side:
"What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried.
"A hidden hope," the voice replied:

So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
From out my sullen heart a power
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove
That every cloud, that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.
~ Alfred Tennyson in The Two Voices ~

2012
Nine tithes of times
Face-flatterer and backbiter are the same.
And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime
Are pronest to it, and impute themselves,
Wanting the mental range; or low desire
Not to feel lowest makes them level all;
Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,
To leave an equal baseness; and in this
Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find
Some stain or blemish in a name of note,
Not grieving that their greatest are so small,
Inflate themselves with some insane delight,
And judge all nature from her feet of clay,
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see
Her godlike head crowned with spiritual fire,
And touching other worlds.
~ Alfred Tennyson ~
in
~ Idylls of the King ~
2013 
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2003
It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. ~ Andrew Jackson
2004
A man should be upright, not kept upright. ~ Marcus Aurelius
2005
Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places. ~ Garrison Keillor (born 7 August 1942)
2006
We help the internet not suck. ~ Jimmy Wales (born 7 August 1966)
2007
Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal. ~ Jimmy Wales
2008
The question isn't whether you have a good master or a bad master. It's to be your own master. That is the dignity of humanity. ~ Alan Keyes
2009
Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car. ~ Garrison Keillor
2010
The real struggle is not between the right and the left but between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. ~ Jimmy Wales
2011
Simply having rules does not change the things that people want to do. You have to change incentives. ~ Jimmy Wales
2012
It turns out a lot of people don’t get it. Wikipedia is like rock’n’roll; it’s a cultural shift.
~ Jimmy Wales ~
2013 
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2003
A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." ~ Stephen Crane
2004
It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion. ~ Tertullian
2005
It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. ~ Paul Dirac (born 8 August 8 1902)
2006
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees! ~ Emiliano Zapata (born 8 August 1879)
2007
There is a quiet at the heart of love,
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.
~ Sara Teasdale ~ (born 8 August 1884)
2008
If I am peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity.
~ Sara Teasdale ~
2009
If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,
If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,
Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness.
~ Sara Teasdale ~
2010
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. ~ Shirley Jackson (in The Haunting of Hill House; died 8 August 1965)
2011
Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten —
These were the same for Sappho as for me.

Two thousand years — much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men —
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.

~ Sara Teasdale ~

2012
We have to be reminded over and over again that Nature is full of paradoxes.
~ Henry Fairfield Osborn ~
2013 
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2003
The battle of the sexes will never be won as long as we keep sleeping with the enemy. ~ Emo Phillips
2004
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies. ~ Robinson Jeffers
2005
TCP implementations will follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. ~ Jonathan B. Postel, RFC 793, entire text of section 2.10
2006
Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society... But for me, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists. ~ Jean Piaget
2007
You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one. ~ P. L. Travers (born 9 August 1899)
2008
The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered. ~ Jean Piaget
2009
For me there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer, because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question.
~ P. L. Travers
2010
If you are not ready, and did not know what to do, it could hurt you in different ways. It could knock you down, hard, or throw you against a tree or a wall. It is such a big explosion, it can smash in buildings and knock signboards over, and break windows all over town, but if you duck and cover, like Bert, you will be much safer. ~ Duck and Cover (1951), about protecting yourself from an atomic explosion; the last-ever nuclear attack (so far) occurred on this date
2011
When the rain came down — I was standing in the green
My soul was touched by every tree that my eyes could see
I am in peace, in love, in harmony — when the rain comes
down

When the rain came down — melded with my tears
When the rain came down — flow away the fears
When the rain came down — bigger than the sea
When the rain came down — then came me.

~ Happy Rhodes ~

2012
This darkness will not last forever. There will some day come a Fifth of November — or another date, it doesn't matter — when fires will burn in a chain of brightness from Land's End to John O' Groats. The children will dance and leap about them as they did in the times before. They will take each other by the hand and watch the rockets breaking, and afterwards they will go home singing to the houses full of light...
~ P. L. Travers ~
2013 
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2004
Nobody can be said to have attained the pinnacle of Truth until a thousand sincere people have denounced him for blasphemy. ~ Anthony de Mello
2005
There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, "Ah, it's those damn liberals," and a whole group of liberals saying, "It's all those damn conservatives." ~ Peter Jennings (recent death)
2006
Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. ~ Herbert Hoover (date of birth)
2007
It has occasionally been remarked upon that it is as easy to overlook something large and obvious as it is to overlook something small and niggling, and that the large things one overlooks can often cause problems. ~ Neil Gaiman in Stardust (movie adaptation released 10 August 2007)
2008
We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday — the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn. ~ Laurence Binyon (born 10 August 1869)
2009
Monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder — just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing. Insisting on the humanity of terrorists is, in fact, critical to maintaining their profound responsibility for the evil they commit.
And, if they are human, then they must necessarily not be treated in an inhuman fashion. You cannot lower the moral baseline of a terrorist to the subhuman without betraying a fundamental value. ~ Andrew Sullivan
2010
The one thing we know about torture is that it was never designed in the first place to get at the actual truth of anything; it was designed in the darkest days of human history to produce false confessions in order to annihilate political and religious dissidents. And that is how it always works: it gets confessions regardless of their accuracy. ~ Andrew Sullivan
2011
What modernity requires is not that you cease living according to your faith, but that you accept that others may differ and that therefore politics requires a form of discourse that is reasonable and accessible to believer and non-believer alike. This religious restraint in politics is critical to the maintenance of liberal democracy. ~ Andrew Sullivan
2012
Being a politician is a poor profession. Being a public servant is a noble one.
~ Herbert Hoover ~
2013 
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2003
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. ~ Adlai Stevenson
2004
The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others. ~ Dag Hammarskjöld
2005
I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll (born 11 August 1833)
2006
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2007
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2008
There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2009
If the world ever advances beyond what it is today, it must be led by men who express their real opinions. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2010
Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.
In this creed there will be but one word — Liberty. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2011
Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression. That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely true, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth.
I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or that I have descended to the very depths of things. I simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That is all. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2012
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Lo! We revealed it on the Night of Predestination.
Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Night of Power is!
The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.
The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees.
(The night is) Peace until the rising of the dawn.
~ Al-Qur'an, Sura 97 : Al-Qadr ~
as translated by
~ M. M. Pickthall ~
2013 
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2003
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. ~ Adlai Stevenson
2004
There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. ~ Washington Irving
2005
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes. ~ George Soros (born 12 August 1930)
2006
The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist. ~ Erwin Schrödinger
2007
Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong. ~ George Soros
2008
It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought — that is to be educated. ~ Edith Hamilton
2009
There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers. ~ Edith Hamilton
2010
No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire. ~ George Soros
2011
How can we escape from the trap that the terrorists have set us? Only by recognizing that the war on terrorism cannot be won by waging war. We must, of course, protect our security; but we must also correct the grievances on which terrorism feeds. Crime requires police work, not military action. ~ George Soros
2012
The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. To spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and, above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.
~ Pierre de Coubertin ~
2013 
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2003
As long as I am mayor of this city the great industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist.' You never hear a real American talk like that. ~ Frank Hague
2004
Humour is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him. ~ Romain Gary
2005
I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned. ~ Lucy Stone (born 13 August 1818)
2006
Make the world better. ~ Lucy Stone (born 13 August 1818)
2007
The Supreme Ethical Rule: Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thy self. ~ Felix Adler (born 13 August 1851)
2008
It is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient. ~ Felix Adler
2009
The question what to believe is perhaps the most momentous that anyone can put to himself. Our beliefs are not to be classed among the luxuries, but among the necessaries of existence. ~ Felix Adler
2010
Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it. ~ Alfred Hitchcock (born 13 August 1899)
2011
It is the nature of the noble and the good and the wise that they impart to us of their nobility and their goodness and their wisdom while they live, making it natural for us to breathe the air they breathe and giving us confidence in our own untested powers. And the same influence in more ethereal fashion they continue to exert after they are gone. ~ Felix Adler
2012
I believe in the supreme excellence of righteousness; I believe that the law of righteousness will triumph in the universe over all evil; I believe that in the attempt to fulfil the law of righteousness, however imperfect it must remain, are to be found the inspiration, the consolation, and the sanctification of human existence.
~ Felix Adler ~
2013 
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2003
I never met a man so stupid I could not learn something from him. ~ Galileo Galilei
2004
Life itself is the proper binge. ~ Julia Child
2005
There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. ~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton
2006
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. ~ Russell Baker (born August 14, 1925)
2007
It's always worth while before you do anything to consider whether it's going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary. ~ John Galsworthy
2008
Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong. ~ Russell Baker
2009
Time will rust the sharpest sword,
Time will consume the strongest cord;
That which molders hemp and steel,
Mortal arm and nerve must feel.

~ Walter Scott

2010
One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honour or observation. ~ Walter Scott
2011
Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world, which really works for union, and destroys the barriers between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment and renewal. ~ John Galsworthy
2012
Come! Let us lay a lance in rest,
And tilt at windmills under a wild sky!
For who would live so petty and unblest
That dare not tilt at something ere he die;
Rather than, screened by safe majority,
Preserve his little life to little end,
And never raise a rebel cry!
~ John Galsworthy ~
2013 
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2003
Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick
2004
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
~ T. S. Eliot ~
2005
To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. ~ Sri Aurobindo (born 15 August 1872), also Independence Day of India (15 August 1947)
2006
Call for the grandest of all earthly spectacles, what is that? It is the sun going to his rest. Call for the grandest of all human sentiments, what is that? It is that man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep. ~ Thomas De Quincey (born 15 August 1785)
2007
The aggressive and quite illogical idea of a single religion for all mankind, a religion universal by the very force of its narrowness, one set of dogmas, one cult, one system of ceremonies, one ecclesiastical ordinance, one array of prohibitions and injunctions which all minds must accept on peril of persecution by men and spiritual rejection or eternal punishment by God, that grotesque creation of human unreason which has been the parent of so much intolerance, cruelty and obscurantism and aggressive fanaticism, has never been able to take firm hold of the Indian mentality. ~ Sri Aurobindo (date of birth, and the 60th Independence day of India)
2008
A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root. ~ Napoleon I of France
2009
The supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of credal statement, but fruits of the soul's inner experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo
2010
If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds. I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest. ~ Napoleon I of France ~
2011
True spirituality rejects no new light, no added means or materials of our human self-development. It means simply to keep our centre, our essential way of being, our inborn nature and assimilate to it all we receive, and evolve out of it all we do and create. ~ Sri Aurobindo
2012
The supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of credal statement, but fruits of the soul's inner experience. Intellectual truth is only one of the doors to the outer precincts of the temple. And since intellectual truth turned towards the Infinite must be in its very nature many-sided and not narrowly one, the most varying intellectual beliefs can be equally true because they mirror different facets of the Infinite. However separated by intellectual distance, they still form so many side-entrances which admit the mind to some faint ray from a supreme Light. There are no true and false religions, but rather all religions are true in their own way and degree. Each is one of the thousand paths to the One Eternal.
~ Sri Aurobindo ~
2013 
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2004
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
2005
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. ~ T. E. Lawrence (born 16 August 1888)
2006
The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is some one outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action. ~ Winston Churchill (said about T. E. Lawrence, born 16 August 1888)
2007
The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern commander. ~ T. E. Lawrence
2008
It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not. ~ Jean de La Bruyère
2009
Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals. It can only be ensured by instinct, sharpened by thought practising the stroke so often that at the crisis it is as natural as a reflex. ~ T. E. Lawrence
2010
Some men, like a tiled house, are long before they take fire, but once on flame there is no coming near to quench them. ~ Thomas Fuller (date of death)
2011
From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race. ~ Jean de La Bruyère
2012
Rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it:
~ T. E. Lawrence ~
2013 
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2003
I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one. ~ Marilyn Monroe
2004
Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. ~ Søren Kierkegaard
2005
Be sure that you are right, and then go ahead. ~ Davy Crockett (born 17 August 1786)
2006
One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people's ideas — and you have to work through it all. ~ V. S. Naipaul
2007
I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized. ~ Davy Crockett
2008
Everything of value about me is in my books. Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will — with luck — come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise. That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. ~ V. S. Naipaul
2009
To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn't know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up. ~ V. S. Naipaul (born August 17, 1932)
2010
Most of authors seek fame, but I seek for justice — a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess. ~ Davy Crockett
2011
I have never knew what it was to sacrifice my own judgment to gratify any party and I have no doubt of the time being close at hand when I will be rewarded for letting my tongue speak what my heart thinks. I have suffered myself to be politically sacrificed to save my country from ruin and disgrace and if I am never again elected I will have the gratification to know that I have done my duty. ~ Davy Crockett
2012
The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff. How far had he walked? Nobody knows. Where did he come from? Nobody knows. How was he made? Nobody knows. Taller than a house the Iron Man stood at the top of the cliff, at the very brink, in the darkness.
~ Ted Hughes ~
2013 
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2003
It's a thingy! A fiendish thingy! ~ George Harrison in Help!
2004
The best mind-altering drug is the truth. ~ Lily Tomlin
2005
If you continue to hate, you are entering into the same philosophy that began the war. You have to look forward at people and new times. ~ Roman Polański (born 18 August 1933)
2006
When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them. They show us the state of our decay. ~ Brian Aldiss (born 18 August 1925)
2007
What we say is the truth is what everybody accepts ... Psychiatry: it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith. ~ Madeleine Stowe as "Dr. Kathryn Railly" in Twelve Monkeys (born 18 August 1958)
2008
Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with! ~ Vladimir Nabokov in Lolita (50th anniversary of its publication in the United States on 18 August 1958)
2009
Tho' the world could turn from you,
This, at least, I learn from you:
Beauty and Truth, tho' never found, are worthy to be sought,
The singer, upward-springing,
Is grander than his singing,
And tranquil self-sufficing joy illumes the dark of thought.
~ Robert Williams Buchanan ~
2010
I saw the starry Tree
Eternity
Put forth the blossom Time.
~ Robert Williams Buchanan ~
2011
I ask no more from mortals
Than your beautiful face implies,—
The beauty the artist beholding
Interprets and sanctifies.
Who says that men have fallen,
That life is wretched and rough?
I say, the world is lovely,
And that loveliness is enough.
~ Robert Williams Buchanan ~
2012
I can't help believing that these things that come from the subconscious mind have a sort of truth to them. It may not be a scientific truth, but it's psychological truth.
~ Brian Aldiss ~
2013 
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2003
There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience. ~ Hartley Shawcross
2004
Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious. ~ Peter Ustinov
2005
Truth has such a face and such a mien As to be lov'd needs only to be seen. ~ John Dryden
2006
How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves. ~ Ogden Nash
2007
Vast is the field of Science ... the more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know. ~ Samuel Richardson
2008
Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.
~ John Dryden ~
2009
Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
~ John Dryden ~
2010
Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter. ~ Bernard Baruch (born 19 August 1870)
2011
The person who will bear much shall have much to bear, all the world through. ~ Samuel Richardson
2012
I'm not smart. I try to observe. Millions saw the apple fall but Newton was the one who asked why.
~ Bernard Baruch ~
2013 
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Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

  • Happy the man, and happy he alone,
    He who can call today his own;
    He who, secure within, can say,
    Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.
    Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,
    The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
    Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
    But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
    ~ John Dryden, based on "Ode XXIX" of Horace ~
2004
One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent. ~ H. L. Mencken
2005
The Government of the State of Israel and the Palestinian team representing the Palestinian people agree that it is time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict, recognize their mutual legitimate and political rights, and strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security to achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation through the agreed political process. ~ Oslo Accords, finalized in Oslo, Norway on 20 August 1993.
2006
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
~ H. P. Lovecraft ~
2007
The world we live in is driven not solely by mindless physical forces but, more crucially, by subjective human values. Human values become the underlying key to world change. ~ Roger Wolcott Sperry
2008
There probably is no more important quest in all science than the attempt to understand those very particular events in evolution by which brains worked out that special trick that has enabled them to add to the cosmic scheme of things: color, sound, pain, pleasure, and all the other facets of mental experience. ~ Roger Wolcott Sperry
2009
Science traditionally takes the reductionist approach, saying that the collective properties of molecules, or the fundamental units of whatever system you're talking about, are enough to account for all of the system's activity. But this standard approach leaves out one very important additional factor, and that's the spacing and timing of activity — its pattern or form. ~ Roger Wolcott Sperry
2010
The grand design of nature perceived broadly in four dimensions, including the forces that move the universe and created man, with special focus on evolution in our own biosphere, is something intrinsically good that it is right to preserve and enhance, and wrong to destroy and degrade. ~ Roger Wolcott Sperry
2011
Some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy. ~ H. P. Lovecraft
2012
Futurists and common sense concur that a substantial change, worldwide, in life style and moral guidelines will soon become an absolute necessity.
~ Roger Wolcott Sperry ~


2013 
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2003
The barge she sat in, like a burnishd throne, burnd on the water; the poop was beaten gold, purple the sails, and so perfumed, that the winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver, which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made the water which they beat to follow faster, as amorous of their strokes. For her own person, it beggard all description ~ "Enobarbus" on Cleapatra, in Antony and Cleopatra Act II sc. ii by William Shakespeare
2004
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. ~ Thomas Carlyle
2005
If you want the world to know
We won't let hatred grow
Put a little love in your heart.
~ Jackie DeShannon ~ (born 21 August 1944)
2006
Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and vileness, and enjoy it to the full. ~ Leon Trotsky (died 21 August 1940)
2007
Another day goes by
Still the children cry
Put a little love in your heart.
~ Jackie DeShannon ~
2008
A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified. ~ Leon Trotsky
2009
People ask me... "What do you still bring from Hawaii? How does it affect your character, how does it affect your politics?" I try to explain to them something about the Aloha Spirit. I try to explain to them this basic idea that we all have obligations to each other, that we're not alone, that if we see somebody who's in need we should help... that we look out for one another, that we deal with each other with courtesy and respect, and most importantly, that when you come from Hawaii, you start understanding that what's on the surface, what people look like — that doesn't determine who they are.
And that the power and strength of diversity, the ability of people from everywhere ... whether they're black or white, whether they're Japanese-Americans or Korean-Americans or Filipino-Americans or whatever they are, they are just Americans, that all of us can work together and all of us can join together to create a better country.
And it's that spirit, that I'm absolutely convinced, is what America is looking for right now. ~ Barack Obama (A quote of a statement about Hawaii, using one of the most famous of Hawaiian words, made by the first US president to be born in Hawaii, for the 50th anniversary of the Statehood of the 50th US State, "The Aloha State.")
2010
The night was long and dark and just
Another dagger to my trust.
I thrust it in until I bleed
I wiped my point for you to see.

And anyway,
It's over now.
Nothing left to say.

I don't know why,
I don't care how,
It's over anyway.

~ Alicia Witt ~ (born 21 August 1975)

2011
Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other. ~ Leon Trotsky
2012
I have no respect for people who deliberately try to be weird to attract attention, but if that's who you honestly are, you shouldn't try to "normalize yourself".
~ Alicia Witt ~
2013 
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2003
I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. ~ Elvis Presley
2004
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
2005
By a free country, I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like. ~ Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (died 22 August 1903)
2006
No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense. ~ Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury (died 22 August 1903)
2007
I wish to write down my musical dreams in a spirit of utter self-detachment. I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naïve candour of a child. No doubt, this simple musical grammar will jar on some people. It is bound to offend the partisans of deceit and artifice. I foresee that and rejoice at it. ~ Claude Debussy (born 22 August 1862)
2008
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. ~ Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.
2009
Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art. ~ Claude Debussy
2010
A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory. ~ Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury (died 22 August 1903)
2111
Parliament is a potent engine, and its enactments must always do something, but they very seldom do what the originators of these enactments meant. - Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
2012
The picture-story involves a joint operation of the brain, the eye and the heart. The objective of this joint operation is to depict the content of some event which is in the process of unfolding, and to communicate impressions. Sometimes a single event can be so rich in itself and its facets that it is necessary to move all around it in your search for the solution to the problems it poses — for the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving. Sometimes you light upon the picture in seconds; it might also require hours or days. But there is no standard plan, no pattern from which to work.
~ Henri Cartier-Bresson ~
2013 
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2003
The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up every bird watcher in the country. ~ John Mitchell
2004
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. ~ Oscar Wilde
2005
I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject. ~ William Wallace at his trial (executed 23 August 1305)
2006
I have brought you to the ring, now see if you can dance. ~ William Wallace
2007
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
~ William Ernest Henley ~
2008
A few Cobras in your home will soon clear it of Rats and Mice. Of course, you will still have the Cobras. ~ Will Cuppy (born 23 August 1884)
2009
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.
~ William Ernest Henley ~
2010
I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle —
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

~ Edgar Lee Masters ~

2011
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
We have indeed revealed this (Message) in the Night of Power:
And what will explain to thee what the night of power is?
The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.
Therein come down the angels and the Spirit by God's permission, on every errand:
Peace!...This until the rise of morn!
~ Al-Qur'an ~
Sura 97 : Al-Qadr
as translated by
Abdullah Yusuf Ali
  • proposed by Kalki to note ths date as one of the several dates of the Islamic calendar traditionally considered a likely one of the Night of Power, in the last 10 days of Ramadan corresponding to August 2011, in the Gregorian calendar.


2012
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
~ Arnold Toynbee ~
2013 
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2004
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. ~ Friedrich Schiller
2005
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. ~ Jorge Luis Borges (born 24 August 1899)
2006
If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves. ~ Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922)
2007
It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is. ~ Jorge Luis Borges (date of birth)
2008
A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. ~ Jorge Luis Borges
2009
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
~ Robert Herrick (DoB)
2010
Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world. ~ Jorge Luis Borges
2011
Gibbon observes that in the Arabian book par excellence, in the Koran, there are no camels; I believe if there were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this absence of camels would be sufficient to prove it is an Arabian work. ~ Jorge Luis Borges
2012
One thinker no less brilliant than the heresiarch himself, but in the orthodox tradition, advanced a most daring hypothesis. This felicitous supposition declared that there is only one Individual, and that this indivisible Individual is every one of the separate beings in the universe, and that those beings are the instruments and masks of divinity itself.
~ Jorge Luis Borges ~
2013 
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2003
What can be said at all can be said clearly. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
2004
It’s no use crying over spilt evils. It’s better to mop them up laughing. ~ Eleanor Farjeon
2005
We have met the enemy and he is us. ~ Walt Kelly in Pogo (Kelly born 25 August 1913)
2006
Being inoffensive, and being offended, are now the twin addictions of the culture. ~ Martin Amis
2007
The humourless as a bunch don't just not know what's funny, they don't know what's serious. They have no common sense, either, and shouldn't be trusted with anything. ~ Martin Amis
2008
Against boredom even gods struggle in vain. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (date of death)
2009
My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant, someone who disrupts the daily drag of life just enough to leave the victim thinking there's maybe more to it all than the mere hum-drum quality of existence. ~ Elvis Costello
2010
Calmly take what ill betideth;
Patience wins the crown at length
Rich repayment him abideth
Who endures in quiet strength.
Brave the tamer of the lion;
Brave whom conquered kingdoms praise;
Bravest he who rules his passions,
Who his own impatience sways.
~ Johann Gottfried Herder
2011
We live in a world we ourselves create. ~ Johann Gottfried Herder
2012
Whate'er of us lives in the hearts of others
Is our truest and profoundest self.
~ Johann Gottfried Herder ~
2013 
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2003
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ~ Emma by Jane Austen
2004
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
2005
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. ~ John Buchan (born 26 August 1875)
2006
We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves. ~ John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir
2007
Our sufferings have taught us that no nation is sufficient unto itself, and that our prosperity depends in the long run, not upon the failure of our neighbors but their successes. ~ John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir
2008
I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it. ~ Christopher Isherwood
2009
If you can't see God in All, You can't see God at All. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi
2010
Happiness comes out of contentment, and contentment always comes out of service. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi
2011
Spread love everywhere you go; first of all in your house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile. ~ Mother Teresa
2012
The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.
~ John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir ~
2013 
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2003
He caught glimpses of everything, but saw nothing. ~Victor Hugo in Les Miserables
2004
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair. ~ Elie Wiesel
2005
The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved. ~ Confucius
2006
Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that brooks no compromise leads us to truth. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (born 27 August 1770)
2007
The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions — none more so than the most capable. ~ Theodore Dreiser (born 27 August 1871)
2008
In every science, after having analysed the ideas, expressing the more complicated by means of the more simple, one finds a certain number that cannot be reduced among them, and that one can define no further. These are the primitive ideas of the science; it is necessary to acquire them through experience, or through induction; it is impossible to explain them by deduction. ~ Giuseppe Peano (born 27 August 1858)
2009
For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die. ~ Ted Kennedy (recent death)
2010
Ambiguity of language is philosophy's main source of problems. That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use. ~ Giuseppe Peano
2011
There are fixed points throughout time where things must stay exactly the way they are. This is not one of them. This is an opportunity! Whatever happens here will create its own timeline, its own reality, a temporal tipping point. The future revolves around you, here, now, so do good! ~ The Doctor in Doctor Who : Cold Blood
  • proposed by Kalki (lines from the Eleventh Doctor, for the date of the opening episode of the autumnal 2011 series: "Let's Kill Hitler!")
2012
It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in providence, than to see their real import or value.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ~
2013 
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2003
Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. ~ The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
2004
It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing. ~ Muhammad
2005
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today... ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • proposed by MosheZadka, expanded from the first Wikiquote Quote of the Day, selected by Nanobug.
2006
Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2007
Moderation, the Golden Mean, the Aristonmetron, is the secret of wisdom and of happiness. But it does not mean embracing an unadventurous mediocrity: rather it is an elaborate balancing-act, a feat of intellectual skill demanding constant vigilance. Its aim is a reconciliation of opposites. ~ Robertson Davies
2008
To which of the warring serpents should I turn with the problem that now faces me?
It is easy, and tempting, to choose the god of Science. Now I would not for a moment have you suppose that I am one of those idiots who scorns Science, merely because it is always twisting and turning, and sometimes shedding its skin, like the serpent that is its symbol. It is a powerful god indeed but it is what the students of ancient gods called a shape-shifter, and sometimes a trickster. ~ Robertson Davies
2009
What is the use of being wise if we are not sometimes merry? The merriment of wise men is not the uninformed, gross fun of ignorant men, but it has more kinship with that than the pinched, frightened fun of those who are neither learned nor ignorant, gentle nor simple, bound nor free. The idea that a wise man must be solemn is bred and preserved among people who have no idea what wisdom is, and can only respect whatever makes them feel inferior. ~ Robertson Davies
2010
The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement. ~ Robertson Davies
2011
Love does not dominate, it cultivates. And that is more. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2012
The best among our writers are doing their accustomed work of mirroring what is deep in the spirit of our time; if chaos appears in those mirrors, we must have faith that in the future, as always in the past, that chaos will slowly reveal itself as a new aspect of order.
~ Robertson Davies ~
2013 
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2003
I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it. ~ Clarence Darrow
2004
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. ~ William Cowper
2005
I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it — but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (born 29 August 1809)
2006
Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts. ~ John Locke (born 29 August 1632)
2007
The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck
2008
Mankind has advanced. Human progress is ceaseless. We can ... conclude that building just societies is a fool's errand. We are always, despite our advances, only one sin away from slipping into the abyss of terror and ignorance. But that is not so. Generations upon generations have driven the human race farther and farther from darkness. ~ John McCain
2009
Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the Creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then, it is the eternal dance of creation. The Creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing — until there is only ... the dance. ~ Michael Jackson ~
2010
Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
2011 
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. ~ John Locke
2012
An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.
~ Maurice Maeterlinck ~
2013 
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2004
There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds. ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson
2005
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. ~ Mary Shelley (born 30 August 1797, and also relating to the recent landfall of Hurricane Katrina
2006
We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves — such a friend ought to be — do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.. ~ Mary Shelley (date of birth)
2007
Live, and be happy, and make others so. ~ Mary Shelley
2008
Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. ~ Warren Buffett
2009
The animals of the Burgess Shale are holy objects — in the unconventional sense that this word conveys in some cultures. We do not place them on pedestals and worship from afar. We climb mountains and dynamite hillsides to find them. We quarry them, split them, carve them, draw them, and dissect them, struggling to wrest their secrets. We vilify and curse them for their damnable intransigence. They are grubby little creatures of a sea floor 530 million years old, but we greet them with awe because they are the Old Ones, and they are trying to tell us something. ~ Stephen Jay Gould
2010
If you're in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent. ~ Warren Buffett
2011
The Muslim Anarchist Charter rejects absolutely:
all forms of violence and political coercion;
all forms of racism and prejudice, including Islamophobia, homophobia and neurelitism.
~ Yakoub Islam ~
2012
My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.
~ Mary Shelley ~
2013 
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2003
Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians. ~ Chester Bowles
2004
Know Thyself ~ Ancient proverb that was inscribed upon the temple of the Oracle of Delphi.
2005
Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. ~ William Saroyan
2006
Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough. ~ William Saroyan
2007
Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. ~ William Saroyan
2008
The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy— the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops. ~ William Saroyan
2009
There’s not a war between Muslims and non-Muslims, but between extremists and moderates of all the religions. ... What is important is not to live in fear. The most dangerous thing to do is to give up and lose hope. The main enemy is not terrorism or extremism, but ignorance. ~ Queen Rania of Jordan
2010
The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less. ~ Eldridge Cleaver
2011
At his best, things do not happen to the artist; he happens to them. ~ William Saroyan
2012
I was never interested in the obvious, or in the details one takes for granted, and everybody seemed to be addicted to the obvious, being astonished by it, and forever harping about the details which I had long ago weighted, measured, and discarded as irrelevant and useless. If you can measure it, don't. If you can weigh it, it isn't worth the bother. It isn't what you're after. It isn't going to get it. My wisdom was visual and as swift as vision. I looked, I saw, I understood, I felt, "That's that, where do we go from here?"
~ William Saroyan ~
2013 
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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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