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May 28

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Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures — in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2005
We have gotten some terrible reviews at times but if we depended on the judgment of the studios or critics, we never would have made more than one movie. ~ Ismail Merchant (recent death)
2006
What I do know for certain is that what is regarded as success in a rational materialistic society only impresses superficial minds. It amounts to nothing and will not help us rout the destructive forces threatening us today. What may be our salvation is the discovery of the identity hidden deep in any one of us, and which may be found in even the most desperate individual, if he cares to search the spiritual womb which contains the embryo of what can be one's personal contribution to truth and life. ~ Patrick White (born 28 May 1912)
2007
I have the same idea with all my books: an attempt to come close to the core of reality, the structure of reality, as opposed to the merely superficial. The realistic novel is remote from art. A novel should heighten life, should give one an illuminating experience; it shouldn't set out what you know already. I just muddle away at it. One gets flashes here and there, which help. I am not a philosopher or an intellectual. Practically anything I have done of any worth I feel I have done through my intuition, not my mind... ~ Patrick White
2008
In my books I have lifted bits from various religions in trying to come to a better understanding; I've made use of religious themes and symbols. Now, as the world becomes more pagan, one has to lead people in the same direction in a different way... ~ Patrick White
2009
The time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world. ~ Louis Agassiz (born 28 May 1807)
2010
War of any kind is abhorrent. Remember that since the end of World War II, over 40 million people have been killed by conventional weapons. So, if we should succeed in averting nuclear war, we must not let ourselves be sold the alternative of conventional weapons for killing our fellow men. We must cure ourselves of the habit of war. ~ Patrick White
2011
What I am interested in is the relationship between the blundering human being and God. I belong to no church, but I have a religious faith; it's an attempt to express that, among other things, that I try to do. Whether he confesses to being religious or not, everyone has a religious faith of a kind. I myself am a blundering human being with a belief in God who made us and we got out of hand, a kind of Frankenstein monster. Everyone can make mistakes, including God. I believe God does intervene; I think there is a Divine Power, a Creator, who has an influence on human beings if they are willing to be open to him. ~ Patrick White
2012
Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone’s finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?
~ Walker Percy ~
2013
I feel that in my own life anything I have done of possible worth has happened in spite of my gross, worldly self. I have been no more than the vessel used to convey ideas above my intellectual capacities. When people praise passages I have written, more often than not I can genuinely say, "Did I write that?" I don't think this is due to my having a bad memory, because I have almost total recall of trivialities. I see it as evidence of the part the supernatural plays in lives which would otherwise remain earthbound.
~ Patrick White ~
2014
I enjoy decoration. By accumulating this mass of detail you throw light on things in a longer sense: in the long run it all adds up. It creates a texture — how shall I put it — a background, a period, which makes everything you write that much more convincing. Of course, all artists are terrible egoists. Unconsciously you are largely writing about yourself. I could never write anything factual; I only have confidence in myself when I am another character. All the characters in my books are myself, but they are a kind of disguise.
~ Patrick White ~
2015
Possibly all art flowers more readily in silence. Certainly the state of simplicity and humility is the only desirable one for artist or for man. While to reach it may be impossible, to attempt to do so is imperative.
~ Patrick White ~
2016
The facts will eventually test all our theories, and they form, after all, the only impartial jury to which we can appeal.
~ Louis Agassiz ~
2017
You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face.
~ Ian Fleming ~
2018

The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
⁠Of men-at-arms who come to pray.

The roses blossom white and red
⁠On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
⁠And martial music cleaves the sky.

Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
⁠They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
⁠They plunged for Freedom and the Right.

May we, their grateful children, learn
⁠Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
⁠At last the accolade of God.

~ Joyce Kilmer ~
2019
This country-right-or-wrong business is getting a little out-of-date. Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I’d been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have been damn near called Communism and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.
~ Ian Fleming ~
2020
Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.
~ George Washington ~
2021
Never say "no" to adventures. Always say "yes", otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.
~ Ian Fleming ~
2022
As you all are aware there was another mass shooting today, this time in my home town of Uvalde, Texas. Once again, we have tragically proven that we are failing to be responsible for the rights our freedoms grant us. … As Americans, Texans, mothers and fathers, it's time we re-evaluate, and renegotiate our wants from our needs. We have to rearrange our values and find a common ground above this devastating American reality that has tragically become our children’s issue.
This is an epidemic we can control, and whichever side of the aisle we may stand on, we all know we can do better. We must do better. Action must be taken so that no parent has to experience what the parents in Uvalde and the others before them have endured.
~ Matthew McConaughey ~
  • proposed by Kalki; recent remarks on recent tragedies.
2023
Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make bored.
~ Ian Fleming ~
2024
I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.
~ Walker Percy ~
2025
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Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

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Suggestions

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I'm iron. I lasted through ten years of war, and now I can last through this. It's true, it's not good for the nerves. ~ Sepp Dietrich (born May 28)

  • 3 because one would have to be steel to withstand many hardships. Zarbon 04:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
    • SOURCE: The Nuremberg Interviews by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004 - Page 280
  • 1 What is being referred to by "this"? - InvisibleSun 17:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 22:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 J.A.R.N.Y.|🗣 01:54, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Conversation is imperative if gaps are to be filled, and old age, it is the last gap but one. ~ Patrick White

The essence of what you have to say you pick up before you're twenty... ~ Patrick White

  • 3 because the perspective and understanding of one is formulated prior to that age. It would be rather difficult to change one's view after this age, dogmatism has become a standard of living, especially for this century. Zarbon 16:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 17:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 J.A.R.N.Y.|🗣 01:54, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it's not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape. ~ György Ligeti (born May 28)

  • 4 because when both the past and future fail to answer, one is deadlocked. Nice. I love these scenarios. Zarbon 06:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 17:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 16:15, 27 May 2009 (UTC) * 3 Kalki 22:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC) but this should perhaps have more context provided
  • 3 with a mild lean toward 4 J.A.R.N.Y.|🗣 01:54, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Why is there such a gap between nonspeaking animals and speaking man, when there is no other such gap in nature?

Is it possible that a theory of man is nothing more nor less than a theory of the speaking creatures? ~ Walker Percy

  • 4 InvisibleSun 18:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 because man holds intellect, experience, and knowledge to differ from the rest of nature. Even if I were to agree with the quote, which I don't, I would never say that the theory of animals holds prevalence to the theory of man, as barbaric as man may be. Greek philosophy is still strong because it taught mankind the major difference between the rest of the animal kingdom and the intellect of man. I don't want to disagree with InvisibleSun too much, because I do agree with him for many suggestions, but this one here I think I can't agree with the ideology behind. Zarbon 21:27, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 22:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Similar views have been expressed in the Babylonian Talmud. If I can find the specific quote, I’ll put it here. J.A.R.N.Y.|🗣 01:54, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Men want a woman whom they can turn on and off like a light switch. ~ Ian Fleming (born May 28, 1908)

The eye of the trilobite tells us that the sun shone on the old beach where he lived; for there is nothing in nature without a purpose, and when so complicated an organ was made to receive light, there must have been light to enter it. ~ Louis Agassiz

Thales kindled a flame that still burns to this day: the very idea of cosmos out of chaos, a universe governed by the order of natural laws that we can actually figure out. This is the epic adventure that began in the mind of Thales. ~ In commemoration of the solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BCE, from the sixth episode of the science documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014).

While it is nice to describe a beautiful rose in full bloom, it would be incomplete without a description of everything—right from its roots, the stem, the manure and nutrients that have sustained it, the fresh and dried leaves as also the thorns, in order to conceptualize the beauty of that rose in all its dimensions. Likewise, for a human being’s biography, he needs to be presented ‘as is’ and not ‘as should be’—from head to toe, nothing more, nothing less, as transparent and true to reality as one can be. Everything that can be said or unsaid, that is embarrassing or praiseworthy has to be documented without inhibitions and fears.
~ V. D. Savarkar ~
Come, Death! If really thou hast started already to come—welcome!
These flowers may tremble to fade away,
These juicy grapes to wither,
But why should I fear Thee?
I have but these wines of tears that fill my cup to offer Thee
And which I thought over-drinking cannot exhaust;
Come if that be acceptable to Thee!
~ V. D. Savarkar ~


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