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March 23

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Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. ~ Albert Einstein
2005
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. ~ Erich Fromm (born 23 March 1900)
2006
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! ~ Patrick Henry, in a speech to the House of Burgesses (23 March 1775)
2007
No work which is destined to become a classic can look like the classics which have preceded it. In art, as in biology, there is heredity but no identity with the ascendants. Painters inherit characteristics acquired by their forerunners; that is why no important work of art can belong to any period but its own, to the very moment of its creation. It is necessarily dated by its own appearance. The conscious will of the painter cannot intervene. ~ Juan Gris (born 23 March 1887)
2008
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) ~ (For Easter Sunday 2008)
2009
I believe that none can "save" his fellow man by making a choice for him. To help him, he can indicate the possible alternatives, with sincerity and love, without being sentimental and without illusion. The knowledge and awareness of the freeing alternatives can reawaken in an individual all his hidden energies and put him on the path to choosing respect for "life" instead of for "death." ~ Erich Fromm
2010
Society must be organized in such a way that man's social, loving nature is not separated from his social existence, but becomes one with it. If it is true, as I have tried to show, that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence, then any society which excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature. ~ Erich Fromm
2011
I believe that love is the main key to open the doors to the "growth" of man. Love and union with someone or something outside of oneself, union that allows one to put oneself into relationship with others, to feel one with others, without limiting the sense of integrity and independence. ~ Erich Fromm
2012
Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either. ~ Erich Fromm
2013
I believe that if an individual is not on the path to transcending his society and seeing in what way it furthers or impedes the development of human potential, he cannot enter into intimate contact with his humanity.
~ Erich Fromm ~
2014
Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.
~ Erich Fromm ~
2015
Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. This script portrays such human beings — the kind who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are. It even shows this sinful need for flattering falsehood going beyond the grave — even the character who dies cannot give up his lies when he speaks to the living through a medium. Egoism is a sin the human being carries with him from birth; it is the most difficult to redeem.
~ Akira Kurosawa ~
on
~ Rashomon ~
2016
You could never teach other people anything that mattered. The important things they had to learn for themselves, almost always by making mistakes, so that the lessons arrived too late to help. Experience was in that sense useless. It was precisely what could not be passed along in a lesson or an equation.
~ Kim Stanley Robinson ~
2017
The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.
~ Erich Fromm ~
2018
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.
~ Wernher von Braun ~
2019
Man's life cannot "be lived" by repeating the pattern of his species; he must live. Man is the only animal that can be bored, that can be discontented, that can feel evicted from paradise. Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape. He cannot go back to the prehuman state of harmony with nature; he must proceed to develop his reason until he becomes the master of nature, and of himself.
~ Erich Fromm ~
2020
To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
~ Erich Fromm ~
2021
One test result is worth one thousand expert opinions.
~ Wernher von Braun ~
2022
How many more lives must be lost?
How many more bombs must fall?
How many Mariupols must be destroyed?
How many Ukrainians and Russians will be killed before everyone realizes that this war has no winners — only losers?
How many more people will have to die in Ukraine, and how many people around the world will have to face hunger for this to stop?
Continuing the war in Ukraine is morally unacceptable, politically indefensible and militarily nonsensical.
What I said from this podium almost one month ago should be even more evident today.
By any measure — by even the shrewdest calculation — it is time to stop the fighting now and give peace a chance.
It is time to end this absurd war.
~ António Guterres ~
2023
Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism have in common that they offered the atomized individual a new refuge and security. These systems are the culmination of alienation. The individual is made to feel powerless and insignificant, but taught to project all of his human powers into the figure of the leader, the state, the "fatherland," to whom he has to submit and whom he has to worship. He escapes from freedom and into a new idolatry. All the achievements of individuality and reason, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century are sacrificed on the altars of the new idols. ...built on the most flagrant lies, both with regard to their programs and to their leaders.
~ Erich Fromm ~
in
~ The Sane Society ~
2024
Spinoza formulated the problem of the socially patterned defect very clearly. He says: "Many people are seized by one and the same affect with great consistency. All his senses are so affected by one object that he believes this object to be present even when it is not. If this happens while the person is awake, the person is believed to be insane. … but if the greedy person thinks only of money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not think of them as being insane, but only has annoying; generally one has contempt for them. But factually greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually one does not think of them as 'illness.'"
These words were written a few hundred years ago; they still hold true, although the defects have been culturally patterned to such an extent now that they are not even generally thought any more to be annoying or contemptible.
~ Erich Fromm ~
in
~ The Sane Society ~
2025
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[edit]

In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead. ~ Erich Fromm

  • 2 because this is rather comical...regardless of the apparent situation. It holds true that people have digressed to disbelief not only from God, but many have found peace in doing nothing and serving absolutely no cause. Zarbon 05:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 14:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4; but would now (2023·03·22) extend this for context to read:
In spite of increasing production and comfort, man loses more and more the sense of self, feels that his life is meaningless, even though such a feeling is largely unconscious. In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
~ Erich Fromm ~
in
~ The Sane Society ~
  • 1 Ningauble 22:11, 22 March 2009 (UTC) — Difficult without context for what is meant by "man is dead."
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Some shall reap that never sow
And some shall toil and not attain. ~ Madison Cawein

Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go — and he'll do plenty well when he gets there. ~ Wernher von Braun

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. ~ Wernher von Braun

  • 2 Zarbon 00:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 14:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Ningauble 22:11, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. ~ Wernher von Braun

  • 2 Zarbon 00:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 14:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun? ~ Wernher von Braun

  • 3 Zarbon 00:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 14:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
  • 2 Ningauble 22:11, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance. ~ Wernher von Braun

  • 2 Zarbon 00:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 14:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1.5 Ningauble 22:11, 22 March 2009 (UTC) — I consider treating these as "alternatives" a false dichotomy.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The universe is hostile only when you do not know its laws. To those who know and obey, the universe is friendly. ~ Wernher von Braun

  • 2 Zarbon 00:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 14:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Ningauble 22:11, 22 March 2009 (UTC) — Obedience is not in question, one may choose to embrace them or to suffer them.

I like silent pictures and I always have … I wanted to restore some of this beauty. I thought of it, I remember in this way: one of techniques of modern art is simplification, and that I must therefore simplify this film. [Rashomon] ~ Akira Kurosawa

  • 3 Proposed to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth.--Ole.Holm 17:30, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 20:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC) but might prefer to find something else by Kurosawa or would prefer to extend this one to read :
I like silent pictures and I always have. They are often so much more beautiful than sound pictures are. Perhaps they had to be. At any rate I wanted to restore some of this beauty. I thought of it, I remember in this way: one of techniques of modern art is simplification, and that I must therefore simplify this film.

May those who are in power today think beyond this day and consider the future of mankind. Their responsibility is enormous. Today, an altogether new order can be created for the benefit of all peoples. Short-sighted misuse of that power can ruin everything. ~ Ludwig Quidde (born 1858-03-23) Ludwig Quidde

Roger Martin du Gard (born 1881-03-23) (1937 Nobel Prize for Literature) bystander (talk) 20:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
~ Patrick Henry ~
It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing whatsoever on reason or mental health. Just as there is a folie à deux there is a folie à millions. The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same mental pathology does not make these people sane.
~ Erich Fromm ~
in
~ The Sane Society ~
The transformation of an atomistic into a communitarian society depends on creating again the opportunity for people to sing together, walk together, dance together, admire together — together, and not, to use Riesman's succinct expression, as a member of a "lonely crowd."
~ Erich Fromm ~
in
~ The Sane Society ~
In the development of both capitalism and communism, as we visualize them in the next fifty or a hundred years, the processes that encourage human alienation will continue. Both systems are developing into managerial societies, their inhabitants well fed, well clad, having their wishes satisfied, and not having wishes that cannot be satisfied. Men are increasingly automatons, who make machines which act like men and produce men who act like machines; their reason deteriorates while their intelligence rises, thus creating the dangerous situation of equipping man with the greatest material power without the wisdom to use it.
~ Erich Fromm ~
in
~ The Sane Society ~


It is time to cease to argue about God, and instead to unite in the unmasking of contemporary forms of idolatry.
~ Erich Fromm ~
in
~ The Sane Society ~


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