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January 14

From Wikiquote

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy — in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other. ~ Robert Heinlein in Stranger In A Strange Land
2005
Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen. ~ Æschylus
2006
Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. ~ Albert Schweitzer (born 14 January 1875)
2007
Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.
Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd. ~ Robert Anton Wilson (recent death)
2008
At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it. ~ Yukio Mishima (born 14 January 1925)
2009
In my great tiredness and discouragement, the phrase, Reverence for Life, struck me like a flash. As far as I knew, it was a phrase I had never heard nor ever read. I realized at once that it carried within itself the solution to the problem that had been torturing me. Now I knew that a system of values which concerns itself only with our relationship to other people is incomplete and therefore lacking in power for good. Only by means of reverence for life can we establish a spiritual and humane relationship with both people and all living creatures within our reach. Only in this fashion can we avoid harming others, and, within the limits of our capacity, go to their aid whenever they need us. ~ Albert Schweitzer
2010
The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up. That is possible for him who never argues and strives with men and facts, but in all experience retires upon himself, and looks for the ultimate cause of things in himself. ~ Albert Schweitzer
2011
To relate oneself in the spirit of reverence for life to the multiform manifestations of the will-to-live which together constitute the world is ethical mysticism. All profound world-view is mysticism, the essence of which is just this: that out of my unsophisticated and naïve existence in the world there comes, as a result of thought about self and the world, spiritual self-devotion to the mysterious infinite Will which is continuously manifested in the universe. ~ Albert Schweitzer
2012
The only way out of today's misery is for people to become worthy of each other's trust. ~ Albert Schweitzer
2013
I do not want to frighten you by telling you about the temptations life will bring. Anyone who is healthy in spirit will overcome them. But there is something I want you to realize. It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do. If your soul is harmed, something irreparable happens, the extent of which you won't realize until it will be too late.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2014
The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the question is what is his attitude to the world and all life that comes within his reach. A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, and that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. Only the universal ethic of the feeling of responsibility in an ever-widening sphere for all that lives — only that ethic can be founded in thought. … The ethic of Reverence for Life, therefore, comprehends within itself everything that can be described as love, devotion, and sympathy whether in suffering, joy, or effort.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2015
Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age, which can show the courage of sincerity, can possess truth, which works as a spiritual force within it.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2016
Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life — it is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound and universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2017
May the men who hold the destiny of peoples in their hands, studiously avoid anything that might cause the present situation to deteriorate and become even more dangerous. May they take to heart the words of the Apostle Paul: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." These words are valid not only for individuals, but for nations as well. May these nations, in their efforts to maintain peace, do their utmost to give the spirit time to grow and to act.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2018
The thinking man must … oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. True manhood is too precious a spiritual good for us to surrender any part of it to thoughtlessness.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2019
Affirmation of the world, which means affirmation of the will-to-live that manifests itself around me, is only possible if I devote myself to other life. From an inner necessity, I exert myself in producing values and practising ethics in the world and on the world even though I do not understand the meaning of the world. For in world- and life-affirmation and in ethics I carry out the will of the universal will-to-live which reveals itself in me. I live my life in God, in the mysterious divine personality which I do not know as such in the world, but only experience as mysterious Will within myself.
Rational thinking which is free from assumptions ends therefore in mysticism.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2020
We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Most certainly I am! I cannot escape my responsibility by saying the State will do all that is necessary. It is a tragedy that nowadays so many think and feel otherwise.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2021
President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government. He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.… Donald John Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
~ The United States House of Representatives ~
  • proposed by Kalki — the concluding lines of the article of Impeachment voted on a few hours ago.
2022
Faith which refuses to face indisputable facts is but little faith. Truth is always gain, however hard it is to accommodate ourselves to it. To linger in any kind of untruth proves to be a departure from the straight way of faith.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2023
I don't ask tabloids to chase me around every week. But at the same time, I would never take back any part of who I am or where I came from. I would never want to be part of anything else. I'm honored and proud of my family and my dad.
~ Lisa Marie Presley ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of her recent death.
2024
The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics. We have reached the point of regarding each other only as members of a people either allied with us or against us and our approach; prejudice, sympathy, or antipathy are all conditioned on that. Now we must rediscover the fact that we — all together — are human beings, and that we must strive to concede to each other what moral capacity we have.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
2025
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Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another. ~ Benedict Arnold (born January 14)

  • 3 because this is a perfect example of one trying to gain redemption for one's own betrayal. Beautiful. Zarbon 16:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
    • SOURCE: The Morning of America - Page 209 by Frank Joseph Klingberg - United States - 1941
  • 2 Kalki 15:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Humanity is my temple, and I am its worshiper. The disabled are my supreme God, and I am their grace seeker. ~ Jagadguru Rāmabhadrācārya (born 14 January 1950)


O the omnipotent Lord, the remover of the distress of your worshippers! Protect me, who is being consumed by the extremely dreadful fire of sorrows, who is helplessly falling in the ocean of the mundane world, who is without any protector, who is ignorant, and who is bonded by the shackles of delusion. ~ Jagadguru Rāmabhadrācārya (born 14 January 1950)


What has been presented as Christianity during these nineteen centuries is only a beginning, full of mistakes, not full blown Christianity springing from the spirit of Jesus.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

When Christianity becomes conscious of its innermost nature, it realizes that it is godliness rising our of inward constraint. The highest knowledge is to know that we are surrounded by mystery. Neither knowledge nor hope for the future can be the pivot of our life or determine its direction. It is intended to be solely determined by our allowing ourselves to be gripped by the ethical God, who reveals Himself in us, and by our yielding our will to His.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

To relate oneself in the spirit of reverence for life to the multiform manifestations of the will-to-live which together constitute the world is ethical mysticism. All profound world-view is mysticism, the essence of which is just this: that out of my unsophisticated and naïve existence in the world there comes, as a result of thought about self and the world, spiritual self-devotion to the mysterious infinite Will which is continuously manifested in the universe.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable, and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship to the universe.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it. A strength which becomes clearer and stronger through its experience of such obstacles is the only strength that can conquer them. Resistance is only a waste of strength.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

Never for a moment do we lay aside our mistrust of the ideals established by society, and of the convictions which are kept by it in circulation. We always know that society is full of folly and will deceive us in the matter of humanity. … humanity meaning consideration for the existence and the happiness of individual human beings.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

The mistake made by all previous systems of ethics has been the failure to recognize that life as such is the mysterious value with which they have to deal. All spiritual life meets us within natural life. Reverence for life, therefore, is applied to natural life and spiritual life alike. In the parable of Jesus, the shepherd saves not merely the soul of the lost sheep but the whole animal. The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger grows also that for spiritual life.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

The last fact which knowledge can discover is that the world is a manifestation, and in every way a puzzling manifestation, of the universal will to live.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

We cannot understand what happens in the universe. What is glorious in it is united with what is full of horror. What is full of meaning is united to what is senseless. The spirit of the universe is at once creative and destructive — it creates while it destroys and destroys while it creates, and therefore it remains to us a riddle. And we must inevitably resign ourselves to this.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

A man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able to succor, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no flower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

The human spirit is capable of creating in our time a new mentality, an ethical mentality. Inspired by this certainty, I too proclaim this truth in the hope that my testimony may help to prevent its rejection as an admirable sentiment but a practical impossibility. Many a truth has lain unnoticed for a long time, ignored simply because no one perceived its potential for becoming reality.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed. It was once considered foolish to suppose that black men were really human beings and ought to be treated as such. What was once foolish has now become a recognized truth. Today it is considered as exaggeration to proclaim constant respect for every form of life as being the serious demand of a rational ethic. But the time is coming when people will be amazed that the human race existed so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real ethics. Ethics is in its unqualified form extended responsibility to everything that has life.
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

Makar Sankranti is fraught with implications for the early phases of the agricultural cycle. It is a time to pray for a prosperous growing season and a good future harvest, and a time to bathe one's cows, so essential to all aspects of agricultural production. It is a time to remember ancestors and, in the evenings, to celebrate around bonfires. - Constance A. Jones

  • 3. --Nvvchar (talk) 00:51, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
  • 2 ♌︎Kalki ⚓︎ 14:15, 13 January 2015 (UTC) with a lean toward 3 or 4. I had strongly considered this, and had actually begun thinking on layouts for it soon after it was suggested, but there is not yet a page for this author here, and I didn't have time to start one, and came to prefer the one by Albert Schweitzer for this year. I actually retained one of the images from the layouts I had considered for this one in the Schweitzer layout, and would probably still like to use that with other images for this one, perhaps next year.

Free choice is a very precious thing.
~ Emily Hahn ~

I have deliberately chosen the uncertain path whenever I had the chance.
~ Emily Hahn ~