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September 23

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Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003
When smashing monuments, save the pedestals — they always come in handy. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
2004
Goodness alone is never enough. A hard cold wisdom is required, too, for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil. ~ Robert A. Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land
2005
There's something happening somewhere — baby I just know that there is.
You can't start a fire — you can't start a fire without a spark.
This gun's for hire — even if we're just dancing in the dark.
~ Bruce Springsteen (born 23 September 1949)
2006
There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change. ~ Euripides (by traditional accounts born on 23 September 480 BC)
2007
Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far. ~ Euripides
2008
If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? ~ Thomas Huxley
2009
In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In such a University, the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge. And the very air he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge; by so much greater and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual; for veracity is the heart of morality. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley
2010
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates hold them; not because their verity is testified by portents and wonders; but because his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source, Nature — whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and to observation — Nature will confirm them. The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley
2011
Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley
2012
You got to set your mind right and the rest will come to you naturally. No restrictions, no hang-ups, no stupid rules, no formalities, no forbidden fruit — just everyone getting and giving as much as he and she can.
~ Ray Charles ~
2013
Soul is when you take a song and make it a part of you — a part that's so true, so real, people think it must have happened to you. … It's like electricity — we don't really know what it is, do we? But it's a force that can light a room. Soul is like electricity, like a spirit, a drive, a power.
~ Ray Charles ~
2014
God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me.
~ Thomas Henry Huxley ~
2015
I believe that we are soft creatures in a world with some very hard edges. It's remarkable that we survive at all, much less do high deeds or write great music. I think … tension … is a condition of our existence, and I do my best to depict it.
~ Brian McNaughton ~
2016
I have not yet begun to fight!
~ John Paul Jones ~
2017
Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.
~ Roger Zelazny ~
in
~ Prince of Chaos ~
  • proposed by Kalki in regard to the latest "end of times" prophecy, regarding this date.
2018

Poor man want to be rich
Rich man want to be king
And a king ain't satisfied
Till he rules everything.
I want to go out tonight
I want to find out what I got.

Well, I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that can save me
I believe in the hope
And I pray that some day it may raise me
Above these badlands.

~ Bruce Springsteen ~
2019
For all their laughter, ghouls are a dull lot. Hunger is the fire in which they burn, and it burns hotter than the hunger for power over men or for knowledge of the gods in a crazed mortal. It vaporizes delicacy and leaves behind only a slag of anger and lust. They see their fellows as impediments to feeding, to be mauled and shrieked at when the mourners go home.
~ Brian McNaughton ~
2020
I don’t think anybody truly knows where we’re going from here yet. It depends on too many unknowns. We don’t know where the COVID virus is going to take us. We don’t know where Black Lives Matter is going to take us right now. Do we get a real practical conversation going about race and policing and ultimately about the economic inequality that’s been a stain on our social contract?
And of course, nobody knows where our next election is going to take us. I believe that our current president is a threat to our democracy. He simply makes any kind of reform that much harder. I don’t know if our democracy could stand another four years of his custodianship. These are all existential threats to our democracy and our American way of life.
~ Bruce Springsteen ~
2021
You better live every day like your last because one day you're going to be right.
~ Ray Charles ~
2022
Under the autumn tree
The chair where you would swing
A yard so full of leaves
Comfort me.
~ Milo Greene ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of the first full day of Autumn, in the Northern Hemisphere.
2023
I can feel a new tomorrow coming on
And I don't know why I have to make a song
Everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning takes so long.
~ Roger Whittaker ~
2024
I hold that mortal foolish who strives against the stress of necessity.
~ Euripides ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…

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Suggestions

[edit]

I should say this, that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she'd look good in anything. ~ Richard Nixon, in the "Checkers speech", given on September 23, 1952.

  • 2. David | Talk 20:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 - InvisibleSun 18:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 0.25 N6n 16:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. ~ Caesar Augustus (born September 23, 63 BC).

  • 3. David | Talk 20:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 3 - I'd always seen this quote with "brick" rather than "bricks"; which one is the more accurate translation I don't know, but "brick" has the advantage of symmetry with "marble." InvisibleSun 18:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 23:10, 22 September 2009 (UTC) * 2 Kalki 17:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC) and would prefer "brick" to "bricks". I had originally ranked this higher, but it seems to be a common paraphrase of a statement by Suetonius, that "He could boast that he inherited it brick and left it marble" which suggests that though Augustus might have used such words, Seutonius is not necessarily quoting him.
  • 3 because this is a good example of bragging one's own accomplishments, and it is a good one at that. Zarbon 23:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 N6n 16:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. ~ John Adams. September 23, 2006 is Rosh Hashanah for the year 5767.

  • 3. David | Talk 21:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 N6n 16:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Slowly but surely withal moveth the might of the gods. ~ Euripides (by traditional accounts born on 23 September 480 BC)

  • 3 Kalki 18:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 18:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 N6n 16:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

If the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet who employs these faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape. ~ Thomas Huxley

  • 2 Zarbon 15:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 N6n 16:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC) -- Some information about the context in parenthesis will make it better. Say, "response to Bishop Wilberforce, who during a public debate had sarcastically questioned: "whether he was descended from an ape on his grandmother's side or his grandfather's".
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-05-04 – 1895-06-29)
I'm confused. Why all of the Thomas Huxley quotes? I like Huxley but I don't see the connection.
bystander (talk) 05:03, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
The date connection does seem tenuous, and I myself had even continued with suggestions by Huxley without checking for a clear one. The only reference to this date on Huxley's page is one to a letter he wrote. ~ ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:05, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Science...commits suicide when it adopts a creed. ~ Thomas Huxley

  • 2 Zarbon 15:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 N6n 16:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom. ~ Thomas Huxley

  • 2 Zarbon 15:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 2 N6n 16:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Not far from the invention of fire must rank the invention of doubt. ~ Thomas Huxley

  • 2 Zarbon 15:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 N6n 16:03, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

If I have played my part well, clap your hands, and dismiss me with applause from the stage. ~ Augustus

  • 4 Zarbon 15:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 21:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC) 2 Kalki 23:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC) I might eventually rank this higher, but this does not seem to be sourced to anything earlier than a 2007 book, which ironically, emphasizes at one point the distinction to be made between primary and secondary sources.

As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress. ~ Cherie Blair

  • 2 Zarbon 15:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Music is nothing separate from me. It is me... You'd have to remove the music surgically. ~ Ray Charles

  • 2 Zarbon 15:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC) but would extend this to:
Music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. You'd have to remove the music from me surgically — like you were taking out my appendix.

If you haven't got eyes you shouldn't have wings. ~ Karl Pilkington

  • 2 Zarbon 15:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Women anchor me. They're there when I need them. They're sensitive to me, and I'm sensitive to them. I'm not saying I've loved that many women. Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap. ~ Ray Charles

  • 3 Kalki 21:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. You'd have to remove the music from me surgically — like you were taking out my appendix. ~ Ray Charles

  • 3 Kalki 21:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

  • 3 Kalki 21:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!
~ Jane Taylor

I had always been impatient with superstition. If I ever met a God, I would apologize for disbelieving in Him, but not until then.
~ Brian McNaughton ~
Vampires, like virgins or priests, are things that women believe in. We must never fail to humor them in such matters.
~ Brian McNaughton ~


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