Wikiquote:Quote of the day/2005

January 2005

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~
We are all in this together. ~ English proverb
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee… ~ John Donne
I know this in no way alleviates the enormous amounts of pain and loss experienced by those who have suffered from the tsunami, but I hope it can make a difference. ~ Sandra Bullock on her large donation to tsunami relief efforts of the American Red Cross
I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do. ~ Helen Keller
I know the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands and say "This has nothing to do with me, I just want to live as comfortably as I can." ~ Ani DiFranco
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
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ~ Robert F. Kennedy
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
If men would consider not so much where they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world. ~ Joseph Addison
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago. ~ Horace Mann
Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance. ~ Anthony de Mello
Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen. ~ Æschylus
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it. ~ Ernest Hemingway
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. ~ Lord Acton
My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them, or indisposed me to serve them; nor in spite of failures, which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge; or of the present aspect of affairs; do I despair of the future.
The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope. ~ Robert E. Lee
The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. ~ George W. Bush
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ~ Thomas Paine
Even as the fingers of the two hands are equal, so are human beings equal to one another. No one has any right, nor any preference to claim over another. You are brothers. ~ Muhammad
So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it. ~ Bertrand Russell
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. ~ Albert Einstein
If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants. ~ Isaac Newton on his intellectual debt to those who preceded him.
Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the world. ~ Archimedes
Remind yourself that all men assert that wisdom is the greatest good, but that there are few who strenuously seek out that greatest good. ~ Pythagoras
Wise men don't need to prove their point;
men who need to prove their point aren't wise.
The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others, the happier he is.
The more he gives to others, the wealthier he is.
The Tao nourishes by not forcing.
By not dominating, the Master leads.
~ Lao Zi ~
Time's glory is to command contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.
~ William Shakespeare ~
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe... No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. ~ Winston Churchill
I have one major rule: everybody is right. More specifically, everybody — including me — has some important pieces of the truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace. ~ Ken Wilber

February 2005

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. ~ American proverb
Anything different is good. ~ Bill Murray as "Phil" in Groundhog Day
The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is or has been is but the twilight of the dawn. ~ H. G. Wells
Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation, in turn, becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on to the future. ~ Charles Lindbergh
I profoundly believe that there is on this horizon, as yet only dimly perceived, a new dawn of conscience. In that purer light, people will come to see themselves in each other, which is to say they will make themselves known to one another by their similarities rather than by their differences. Man's knowledge of things will begin to be matched by man's knowledge of self. The significance of a smaller world will be measured not in terms of military advantage, but in terms of advantage for the human community. It will be the triumph of the heartbeat over the drumbeat. ~ Adlai Stevenson
You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down — up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. ~ Ronald Reagan
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ~ Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. ~ Martin Buber
My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue,
An everlasting vision of the everchanging view,
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold,
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.
~ Carole King ~
Be nice to people on your way up, because you're going to meet them all on your way down. ~ Jimmy Durante
If one knows only what one is told, one does not know enough to be able to arrive at a well-balanced decision. ~ Leó Szilárd
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
In this moment, I need to be needed,
With this darkness all around me, I like to be liked,
In this emptiness and fear, I want to be wanted,
'Cause I love to be loved,
I love to be loved.
~ Peter Gabriel ~
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. ~ Robert A. Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. ~ Galileo Galilei
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~ Henry Adams
There is one simple Divinity found in all things, everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being. ~ Giordano Bruno
Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis
I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgement of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus
All in all is all we are. ~ Kurt Cobain
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
~ W. H. Auden ~
All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity. ~ George Washington
If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up. ~ Hunter S. Thompson
We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on. ~ Steve Jobs
Little darling,
I feel that ice is slowly melting.
Little darling,
It seems like years since it's been clear.
Here comes the sun...
Here comes the sun,
And I say
It's alright.
~ George Harrison ~
The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge. ~ Victor Hugo
The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit — for gallantry in defeat — for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature. ~ John Steinbeck
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being. ~ Michel de Montaigne

March 2005

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. ~ Jef Raskin
From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere. ~ Dr. Seuss
Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do you will be certain to find something you have never seen before. ~ Alexander Graham Bell
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than fifty preaching it. ~ Knute Rockne
The most dangerous phrase in the language is, "We've always done it this way." ~ Grace Hopper
Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God: but only he who sees, takes off his shoes, the rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries, and daub their natural faces unaware... ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Man is constituted as a speculative being; he contemplates the world, and the objects around him, not with a passive indifferent eye, but as a system disposed with order and design. ~ John Herschel
We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it! ~ Yuri Gagarin
A loser doesn't know what he'll do if he loses, but talks about what he'll do if he wins, and a winner doesn't talk about what he'll do if he wins, but knows what he'll do if he loses. ~ Eric Berne
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. ~ Douglas Adams
I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down. ~ Jack Kerouac
What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my contempt, of others. ~ Joseph Priestley
Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest. ~ Albert Einstein
Beware the ides of March. ~ William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar
If in my lifetime the problem of non-free software is solved, I could perhaps relax and write software again. But I might instead try to help deal with the world's larger problems. Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating, and now I have a taste for it. ~ Richard Stallman
I am imperfect in many things, nevertheless I want my brethren and kinsfolk to know my nature so that they may be able to perceive my soul's desire. ~ Saint Patrick
We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable. ~ John Updike
The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior. ~ Earl Warren
Everything comes gradually and at its appointed hour. ~ Ovid
Between individuals, as between nations, respect for the rights of others is peace. ~ Benito Juárez
Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words? ~ Marcel Marceau
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. ~ Erich Fromm
Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it. ~ Wilhelm Reich
If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ)
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down. ~ Robert Frost
Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ)
A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice. ~ James Callaghan
If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted. ~ Eric Idle
Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well. ~ Vincent van Gogh
Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess. ~ René Descartes

April 2005

When you want to fool the world, tell the truth. ~ Otto von Bismarck
To be an artist is a blessing and a privilege. Artists must never betray their true hearts. Artists must look beneath the surface and show that there is more to this world than what meets the eye. ~ Marvin Gaye
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece. ~ Pope John Paul II
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth...
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
~ Maya Angelou ~
Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools. ~ Thomas Hobbes
See, I write jokes for a living, man. I sit in my hotel at night and think of something that's funny and then I go get a pen and write 'em down. Or, if the pen's too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny. ~ Mitch Hedberg
Out of the struggle at the center has come an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are, and what this life is for. At the center humankind struggles with collective powers for its freedom, the individual struggles with dehumanization for the possession of his soul. ~ Saul Bellow
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Gautama Buddha
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. ~ Richard Feynman
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. ~ William Hazlitt
Our institutions were not devised to bring about uniformity of opinion; if they had we might well abandon hope. It is important to remember, as has well been said, 'the essential characteristic of true liberty is that under its shelter many different types of life and character and opinion and belief can develop unmolested and unobstructed'. ~ Charles Evans Hughes
A living body is not merely an integration of limbs and flesh but it is the abode of the soul which potentially has perfect perception, perfect knowledge, perfect power, and perfect bliss. ~ Mahavira
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. ~ Thomas Jefferson
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. ~ James Branch Cabell
Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing ... Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles... ~ Leonardo da Vinci
In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. ~ Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator
We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. ~ Thornton Wilder
Music can be all things to all persons. It is like a great dynamic sun in the center of a solar system which sends out its rays and inspiration in every direction.... Music makes us feel that the heavens open and a divine voice calls. Something in our souls responds and understands. ~ Leopold Stokowski
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble worker in the Lord's vineyard. The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. ~ Pope Benedict XVI
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. ~ John Muir
Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. ~ Immanuel Kant
We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. ~ "Prospero" in The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Everything seems an echo of something else. ~ Robert Penn Warren
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices — just recognize them. ~ Edward R. Murrow
If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft
It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. ~ Terry Pratchett
Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason. ~ Jerry Seinfeld
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss

May 2005

DON'T PANIC
~ Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy ~
You know more than you think you do. ~ Benjamin Spock
It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. ~ Niccolò Machiavelli
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. ~ Horace Mann
Democracy is the destiny of humanity; freedom its indestructible arm. ~ Benito Juárez
If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out. ~ Rabindranath Tagore
Where men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense, which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities. ~ David Hume
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers. ~ Thomas Pynchon
Life is a long lesson in humility. ~ J. M. Barrie
The world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape. ~ Bono
When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is trying to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. ~ J. Krishnamurti
Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. ~ Florence Nightingale
It behoved that there should be sin — but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. ~ Julian of Norwich
If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, if I could be on the brink my entire life — that great sense of expectation and excitement without the disappointment — that would be the perfect state. ~ Cate Blanchett
Things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams — day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. ~ L. Frank Baum
You say that you are my judge. I don't know if you are — but take care not to judge wrongly, lest you place yourself in great danger. ~ Jehanne Darc (Jeanne d'Arc; Joan of Arc)
I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality. ~ Mitch Hedberg
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead. ~ Bertrand Russell
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. ~ Malcolm X
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ~ John Stuart Mill
May the Force be with you. ~ Jedi saying; used in all Star Wars episodes.
The highest morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half-told story comes to be finished. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle
It seems that it is madder never to abandon one's self than often to be infatuated; better to be wounded, a captive and a slave, than always to walk in armor. ~ Margaret Fuller
I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. ~ Bob Dylan
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility. ~ Rachel Carson
The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness. ~ Julia Ward Howe
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
Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn. ~ T. H. White
The liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual. ~ Mikhail Bakunin
When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth, Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth, And the infidel come into full possession. ~ Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass

June 2005

I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it. ~ Alanis Morissette
I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat. ~ W. Mark Felt
A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense. Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt. The "taken for granted" is the test of sanity... In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt. ~ Lawrence Lessig
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. ~ Socrates
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. ~ John Maynard Keynes
Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool. ~ Aleksandr Pushkin
Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks
I have something to tell you today. Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life — for the past five years. ~ Steve Jobs
There are always good parts. They may not pay what you want, and they may not have as many days' work as you want, they may not have the billing that you want, they may not have a lot of things, but — the content of the role itself — I find there are many roles. ~ Anne Bancroft
A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life. It tells us that for every human being there is a diversity of existences, that the single existence is itself an illusion in part, that these many existences signify something, tend to something, fulfill something; it promises us meaning, harmony and even justice. ~ Saul Bellow
The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads. ~ William Styron
I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that's why I'm grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop and to express all that's inside me! ~ Anne Frank
Talent perceives differences, Genius unity. ~ William Butler Yeats
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force. ~ Che Guevara
If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow. ~ William McFee
I cannot think we are useless or Usen would not have created us. He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each. ~ Geronimo
I observed, 'Love is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment.' It is not only 'the first and great' command, but all the commandments in one. 'Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,' they are all comprised in this one word, love. ~ John Wesley
In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. ~ Paul McCartney
True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher. ~ Blaise Pascal
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions. ~ Lillian Hellman
Life has no meaning a priori... It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre
The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition. ~ Alan Turing
Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with new ones. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ~ George Orwell
The sons of torture victims make good terrorists. ~ André Malraux
Some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They are Ignorance, Superstition, and Bigotry — the most sinister and tyrannical rulers on earth. ~ Emma Goldman
Now you see, Lone Starr, that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb. ~ "Dark Helmet" in Spaceballs by Mel Brooks
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing — a somewhat unfamilar conception for the average mind. Furthermore, the equation E = mc², in which energy is put equal to mass, multiplied by the square of the velocity of light, showed that very small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa. ~ Albert Einstein

July 2005

We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased, it's just like old times. ~ "Sir Humphrey" on European unity, in the comedy series Yes, Minister
Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. ~ Hermann Hesse
The splendor of life forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though; not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. ~ Franz Kafka
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ~ The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
From time to time the exceptional is necessary. For events as well as for men, the stock company is not enough; geniuses are needed among men, and revolutions among events. Great accidents are the law; the order of things cannot get along without them; and, to see the apparitions of comets, one would be tempted to believe that Heaven itself is in need of star actors. ~ Victor Hugo in Les Misérables
I have not yet begun to fight! ~ John Paul Jones
The more you love, the more you can love — and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just. ~ Robert A. Heinlein
Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people. ~ Jean de La Fontaine
God never deserted our people. Right through the ages there were Jews. Through the ages they suffered, but it also made us strong. ~ Anne Frank
All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle. ~ Nikola Tesla
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. ~ John Quincy Adams
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. ~ Bill Cosby
I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others — that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail. ~ Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London
We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal. ~ Ingmar Bergman
Eternal vigilance must be maintained to guard against those who seek to stifle ideas, establish a narrow orthodoxy, and divide our nation along arbitrary lines of race, ethnicity, and religious belief or non-belief. ~ Jesse Ventura
By the declining day, lo! man is in a state of loss, save those who believe and do good works, and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to endurance. ~ The Qur'an
Most of the books, music and movies ever released are not available for sale, anywhere in the world. In the brief time that P2P nets have flourished, the ad-hoc masses of the Internet have managed to put just about everything online. What’s more, they’ve done it far cheaper than any other archiving/revival effort ever. ~ Cory Doctorow
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~ Nelson Mandela
Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. ~ Otto von Bismarck
That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. ~ Neil Armstrong on first stepping onto the surface of the moon, 20th July 1969.
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for awhile, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. ~ Carl Sagan
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
~ Emma Lazarus ~
The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective. ~ Raymond Chandler
Thro' many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. ~ John Newton
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him. ~ Carl Jung
From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, There's nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends. ~ Hilaire Belloc
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve. ~ Karl Popper
All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. ~ IBM maintenance manual (1925)
No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.
~ Emily Brontë ~
I think I'd most like to spend a day with Harry. I'd take him out for a meal and apologise for everything I've put him through. ~ J. K. Rowling

August 2005

From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it. That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber trophies than all the stars in universal space. ~ Herman Melville
When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, and they never will because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains need to wake up. I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it. ~ "Serendipity" in Dogma, by Kevin Smith
When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist upon other planets throughout the universe. It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose. ~ Clifford D. Simak
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. ~ Mohandas Gandhi
The Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places. ~ Garrison Keillor
It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. ~ Paul Dirac
TCP implementations will follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. ~ Jon Postel
There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, 'Ah, it's those damn liberals,' and a whole group of liberals saying, 'It's all those damn conservatives.'... ~ Peter Jennings
I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes. ~ George Soros
I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned. ~ Lucy Stone
There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. ~ G. K. Chesterton
To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. ~ Sri Aurobindo
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. ~ T. E. Lawrence
Be sure that you are right, and then go ahead. ~ Davy Crockett
It’s a new generation. If you continue to hate, you are entering into the same philosophy that began the war. You have to look forward at people and new times. ~ Roman Polański
Truth has such a face and such a mien as to be lov'd needs only to be seen. ~ John Dryden
The Government of the State of Israel and the Palestinian team representing the Palestinian people agree that it is time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict, recognize their mutual legitimate and political rights, and strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security to achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation through the agreed political process. ~ The Oslo Accords
If you want the world to know
We won't let hatred grow
Put a little love in your heart.
~ Jackie DeShannon ~
By a free country, I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like. ~ Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury
I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject. ~ William Wallace
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. ~ Jorge Luis Borges
We have met the enemy and he is us. ~ Walt Kelly
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. ~ John Buchan
The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved. ~ Confucius
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today... ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it — but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. ~ Mary Shelley
Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. ~ William Saroyan

September 2005

It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls. ~ Bruce Fairchild Barton
Speak softly and carry a big stick. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. ~ Frederick Douglass
I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise? ~ Federico Fellini
The role of the Supreme Court is to uphold those claims of individual liberty that it finds are well-founded in the Constitution, and to reject other claims against the government that it concludes are not well-founded. Its role is no more to exclusively uphold the claims of the individual than it is to exclusively uphold the claims of the government: It must hold the constitutional balance true between these claims. ~ William Rehnquist
No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. ~ Robert M. Pirsig
I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. ~ Edith Sitwell
Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give. ~ David O. McKay
Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. ~ Leo Tolstoy
I strongly reject any conceptual scheme that places our options on a line, and holds that the only alternative to a pair of extreme positions lies somewhere between them. More fruitful perspectives often require that we step off the line to a site outside the dichotomy. ~ Stephen Jay Gould
September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy. But September 11 also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not just to America but to the world at large. The target of the terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very values of freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life. ~ Tony Blair
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of the truth — that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one. ~ H. L. Mencken
Miss Manners does not mind explaining the finer points of gracious living, but she feels that anyone without the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it in their face should probably not be running around loose on the streets. ~ Judith Martin, widely known as "Miss Manners"
I've had enough of breakdowns and diagrams — judging from picture books, apparently Heaven is a partly cloudy place. ~ Jenny Lewis
Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions. ~ Agatha Christie
A planned life is a dead life. ~ Lauren Bacall
I've never seen anybody really find the answer — they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer. ~ Ken Kesey
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. ~ Samuel Johnson
There comes a point when a dream becomes reality and reality becomes a dream. ~ Frances Farmer
There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age. ~ Sophia Loren
Hope is a good thing — maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies. ~ "Andy Dufresne" in The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~ George Eliot
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 ~
I wait... wait for the mists and for the blacker rain — heavier winds that stir the veil of fate, happier winds that pile her hair; Again they tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air upon me, winds that I know, and storm. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Between grief and nothing I will take grief. ~ William Faulkner
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed.
~ T. S. Eliot ~
Could you see the storm rising?
Could you see the guy who was driving?
Could you climb higher and higher?
Could you climb right over the top?
~ Kate Bush ~
In the season of white wild roses
We two went hand in hand:
But now in the ruddy autumn
Together already we stand.
~ Francis Turner Palgrave ~
There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery. ~ Enrico Fermi
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~ Helen Schucman

October 2005

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children. ~ Jimmy Carter
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone3 fil. ~ Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone
Everyone seems to be playing well within the boundaries of his usual rule set. I have yet to hear anyone say something that seemed likely to mitigate the idiocy of this age. ~ John Perry Barlow
If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God. ~ Stephen Hawking
Politicians at international forums may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal respect for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, the miracle of our own existence. ~ Václav Havel
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. ~ Niels Bohr
Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you've always known. ~ Frank Herbert in Dune
I think the ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei
The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity — love. And the story of a love is not important — what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity. ~ Helen Hayes
You always fall when you’re training, that’s sort of part of the process. If you’re not falling, you’re not training hard enough. ~ Michelle Trachtenberg
Tragedy blows through your life like a tornado, uprooting everything, creating chaos. You wait for the dust to settle, and then you choose. You can live in the wreckage and pretend it's still the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. ~ Kristen Bell, as "Veronica Mars"
Forgive us the breach of positive commands and negative commands, whether or not they involve an act, whether or not they are known to us. ~ Liturgy for Yom Kippur
love is the every only god ~ e. e. cummings
Behold the believers of all beliefs! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker — he, however, is the creator. Companions, the creator seeketh, not corpses — and not herds or believers either. Fellow-creators the creator seeketh — those who grave new values on new tables. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. ~ Oscar Wilde
Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El — they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. ~ Marlon Brando as "Jor-El" in Superman: The Movie
We take the position that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. ~ Pierre Trudeau
Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past. ~ Lewis Mumford
I think for it to be unhip to be idealistic is weird, you know? I mean, even all the best rebels to me had some sense of hope in them. ~ Tom Petty
Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration. ~ Thomas Alva Edison
I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether caffeine or LSD. And drugs are not central to my life. ~ Timothy Leary
Reality is always greater — much greater — than what we know, than whatever we can say about it. ~ Michael Crichton
The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel. ~ Horace Walpole
Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used. ~ Richard E. Byrd
I know that it will hurt, I know that it will break your heart, the way things are, and the way they've been. Don't spread the discontent, don't spread the lies, don't make the same mistakes with your own life. ~ Natalie Merchant
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Life is an error-making and an error-correcting process, and nature in marking man's papers will grade him for wisdom as measured both by survival and by the quality of life of those who survive. ~ Jonas Salk
All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. ~ Muhammad
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. ~ John Adams
I can see lights in the distance trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing a waltz on All Souls Night.
~ Loreena McKennitt ~

November 2005

I am everything —
Tonight I'll be your mother — I will
Do such things to ease your pain —
Free your mind and you won't feel ashamed.
~ Sophie B. Hawkins ~
Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end? ~ Marie Antoinette
Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high,
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
~ Judy Garland as "Dorothy Gale" in The Wizard of Oz ~
After looking at mothers-in-law and seeing sons-in-law — I always felt that the jokes were on the wrong ones. No sir, you can look through everything I ever did write or say, and you never did hear me tell a joke about any mother-in-law — or any creed, color or religion, either. ~ Will Rogers
I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. ~ Will Durant
An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. ~ Mohandas Gandhi
I found a book on how to be invisible —
On the edge of the labyrinth —
Under a veil you must never lift —
Pages you must never turn —
In the labyrinth.
~ Kate Bush ~
Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. ~ John F. Kennedy
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. ~ Carl Sagan
We are always living in the final days. What have you got? A hundred years or much, much less until the end of your world. ~ Neil Gaiman
Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains that victory. ~ George S. Patton
Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements. ~ Bahá'u'lláh
Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good. ~ Augustine of Hippo
The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru
Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.
~ William Cowper ~
From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen. ~ Robert Nozick
It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and if it does, then only temporarily. ~ Martin Scorsese
We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings. ~ Alan Moore in Watchmen
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
The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is. ~ Nadine Gordimer
We must believe in free will — we have no choice. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
O may I join the choir invisible of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence; live in pulses stirred to generosity, in deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn for miserable aims that end with self, in thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, and with their mild persistence urge men's search to vaster issues. ~ George Eliot
As good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. ~ John Milton in Areopagitica
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
Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future. ~ Ba Jin
If I were to be given the opportunity to present a gift to the next generation, it would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh at himself. ~ Charles M. Schulz
Put every great teacher together in a room, and they'd agree about everything; put their disciples in there and they'd argue about everything. ~ Bruce Lee
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. ~ William Blake
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. ~ C.S. Lewis
Hello. My name is Iñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. ~ Mandy Patinkin as "Iñigo Montoya" in The Princess Bride

December 2005

The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter... if it turns about that there is a God, I don't think that he is evil. I think that the worst thing you could say is that he is, basically, an under-achiever. ~ Woody Allen
I do not believe that friendship today can flower out — can come out — of political life. I do believe that if there is something like a political life-to-be — to remain for us, in this world of technology — then it begins with friendship. ~ Ivan Illich
All idealisation makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity — it is to destroy it. ~ Joseph Conrad
Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse. ~ Walt Disney
Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder;
Love is a poignant and accustomed pain.
It is a burst of Heaven-shaking thunder;
It is a linnet's fluting after rain.
~ Joyce Kilmer ~
That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. ~ Willa Cather
It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers. ~ James Thurber
We take men for what they are worth — and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might — perhaps not strong enough — to put an end to it. ~ Peter Kropotkin
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
~ Emily Dickinson ~
Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation's heart, the excision of its memory. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I had some great things and I had some bad things. The best and the worst... In other words, I had a life. ~ Richard Pryor
The maple tree that night
Without a wind or rain
Let go its leaves
Because its time had come.
~ Eugene McCarthy ~
My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned but not bought. ~ Margaret Chase Smith
Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious dogma or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. ~ Freeman Dyson
Fear can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy. If you're afraid you don't commit yourself to life completely; fear makes you always, always hold something back. ~ Philip K. Dick
I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. ~ Charles Dickens
It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die. ~ Steve Biko
The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him, they crush those beneath them. ~ Emily Brontë
For most of human history we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Who are we? What are we? We find that we inhabit an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions, and by the depth of our answers. ~ Carl Sagan
I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom. ~ George S. Patton
My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy. ~ George Eliot
Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way . . . out of that a new holiday was born . . . a Festivus for the rest of us! ~ Jerry Stiller as "Frank Costanza" in Seinfeld, on the origins of Festivus.
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
~ "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ~
My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that? ~ Bob Hope
It is not the facts which guide the conduct of men, but their opinions about facts; which may be entirely wrong. We can only make them right by discussion. ~ Norman Angell
Except for the people who were there that one day they discovered the polio vaccine, being part of history is rarely a good idea. History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between. ~ Sarah Vowell
No nation is fit to sit in judgement upon any other nation. ~ Woodrow Wilson
If I am shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet. ~ Andrew Johnson
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise . . .
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son!
~ Rudyard Kipling ~
For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
~ "Auld Lang Syne" by Robert Burns ~

Other Quote of the Day archives