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February 12

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Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity. ~ John F. Kennedy
2005
The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less. ~ Arthur Miller (recent death)
2006
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. ~ Abraham Lincoln (born 12 February 1809)
2007
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. ~ Abraham Lincoln
2008
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ~ Charles Darwin (born 12 February 1809)
2009
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. ~ Abraham Lincoln
2010
I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. ~ Abraham Lincoln
2011
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. ~ Abraham Lincoln
2012
Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. ~ Abraham Lincoln
2013
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2014
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2015
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2016
Slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty; criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2017
Congratulations. You're alive.
There's an unbroken thread that stretches across more than three billion years that connects us to the first life that ever touched this world. Think of how tough, resourceful and lucky all of our countless ancestors must have been to survive long enough to pass on the message of life to the next and the next and the next generation, hundreds of millions of times before it came to us. There were so many rivers to cross, so many hazards along the way. Predators, starvation, disease, miscalculation, long winters, drought, flood and violence. Not to mention the occasional upheavals that erupted from within our planet and the apocalyptic bolts that come from the blue.
No matter where we hail from or who our parents were, we are descended from the hearty survivors of unimaginable catastrophes. Each of us is a runner in the longest and most dangerous relay race there ever was, and at this moment, we hold the baton in our hands.
~ Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey ~
2018
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2019
In vain were all her sighs and tears,
In vain were all his anxious fears:
All, insubstantial, doomed to pass,
As moonlight mirrored in the water,
Or flowers reflected in a glass.
~ Cao Xueqin ~
in
~ Dream of the Red Chamber ~
2020
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you, "Be silent; I see it, if you don't."
The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2021
Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled — the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains — its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2022
More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar
Utterly this fair garden we might win.
~ George Meredith ~
2023
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2024
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…

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

  • The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. ~ Abraham Lincoln
  • In a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. ~ Abraham Lincoln
  • There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. ~ Charles Darwin, in The Origin of Species, published 24 November 1859
  • If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. ~ Abraham Lincoln
  • Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. ~ Abraham Lincoln
  • Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving, for, of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. ~ Charles Darwin

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Suggestions

[edit]

He defended and praised slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all answered "No." I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything? ~ Charles Darwin

  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 22:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 (strongly leaning to 4) allixpeeke (talk) 01:02, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Not till the fire is dying in the grate,
Look we for any kinship with the stars.
Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold,
And the great price we pay for it full worth:
We have it only when we are half earth.
~ George Meredith (born February 12, 1828)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 22:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I would not have believed such an inferno could open up on earth. Men died but they did not retreat. ~ Vasily Chuikov (born February 12)

  • 3 Zarbon 04:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
    • SOURCE: Europe in Our Time, 1914 to the Present - Page 571 by Robert Reinhold Ergang -Europe - 1948
  • 2 Kalki 17:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

He who knows the truth and does not speak it is a miserable coward. - Julius Streicher

  • 3 Zarbon 16:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC) The statement is a great one, but the speaker is a miserable fool and hypocrite, and cowardly in ways he cannot even perceive, and that is the Truth.
    • Why would you judge the person? See, what you should be doing is judging the quotes, not the people who say them...this isn't opinionpedia, it's qotd...whether or not I like the people saying the quotes is beyond the point here. But, for the record, I don't judge any man as a coward or a fool. In fact, I don't believe in that word "coward". Anyone who can actually formulate a well-established thought such as this one is great to me. And I let that be my only guiding principle. If words are power, then judge words. - Zarbon 05:21, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I perceive many circumstances — of words, meanings, people and the correspondence, or lack of them, between their words, meanings and their actions, and I assess many forms of foolishness, cowardice and hypocrisy to be at work in many minds — as well as many forms of wisdom, courage, and profound fairness. I honestly state that I am simply not inclined to rate so often (but not always) true a statement as a desirable selection as a quote of the day when enunciated by a person of so foul and profoundly brutal a disposition. It is only a relatively minor quibble that it is not literally true in all instances, for many are the truths that courageous people can be willing to hide or even on some occasions deny, for the sake of far greater sense of truly vital virtues than can arise with any merely mechanistic formulations or semblance of them.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 allixpeeke (talk) 01:02, 23 August 2014 (UTC) (I know nothing about the man who came up with the quote.)

This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from their shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others. When I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. ~ Abraham Lincoln

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

I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. ~ Charles Darwin

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act. ~ Charles Darwin

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.  And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. ~ Abraham Lincoln

  • proposed by anonymous
  • While I in no way endorse the sentiment in this quote, I wish to argue for this quote's inclusion on the grounds that people tend not to be aware that the real Lincoln was not nearly as noble as he is often construed to be.  As this quote demonstrates, Lincoln was a racist, not an egalitarian; a collectivist, not an individualist.  He does not deserve our worship, nor does any other president.  3 (strongly leaning to 4) allixpeeke (talk) 01:02, 23 August 2014 (UTC)\
  • 0. I would give it a negative score if I could. Is this a joke? Taken completely out of context. – Illegitimate Barrister 19:41, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
People, let me say God has made you free. Although you have been deprived of your God-given rights by your so-called masters, you are now as free as I am, and if those that claim to be your superiors do not know that you are free, take the sword and bayonet and teach them that you are; for God created all men free, giving to each the same rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
My poor friends, you are free, free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it; it will come to you no more. Liberty is your birthright. God gave it to you as He gave it to others, and it is a sin that you have been deprived of it for so many years. But you must try to deserve this priceless boon. Let the world see that you merit it, and are able to maintain it by your good works. Don't let your joy carry you into excesses. Learn the laws and obey them; obey God's commandments and thank Him for giving you liberty, for to Him you owe all things.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
Don't kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy. I am but God's humble instrument; but you may rest assured that as long as I live no one shall put a shackle on your limbs; and you shall have all the rights which God has given to every other free citizen of this republic.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
Slaves are human beings. Men, not property. That some of the things, at least, stated about men in the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us. I say, we think, most of us, that this charter of freedom applies to the slave as well as to ourselves.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. Why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A? You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
It is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.
~ Abraham Lincoln (R–IL) ~
When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat — just what might happen to any poor man's son! I want every man to have the chance — and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which he can better his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.
~ Abraham Lincoln (R–IL) ~
Property is the fruit of labor—property is desirable—is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprize. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
~ Abraham Lincoln ~


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