Wikiquote:Quote of the day/August 2007
- August 1
People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. ~ Ingmar Bergman
- August 2
The moment always comes when, having collected one's ideas, certain images, an intuition of a certain kind of development — whether psychological or material — one must pass on to the actual realization. ~ Michelangelo Antonioni
- August 3
There is a plan, it seems to me, that reaches out of the electron to the rim of the universe and what this plan may be or how it came about is beyond my feeble intellect. But if we are looking for something on which to pin our faith — and, indeed, our hope — the plan might well be it. I think we have thought too small and have been too afraid. ~ Clifford D. Simak
- August 4
In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man’s estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man’s estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
- August 5
There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. ~ Guy de Maupassant
- August 6
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
~ Alfred Tennyson ~
- August 7
Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal. ~ Jimmy Wales
- August 8
There is a quiet at the heart of love,
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.
~ Sara Teasdale ~
- August 9
You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one. ~ P. L. Travers
- August 10
It has occasionally been remarked upon that it is as easy to overlook something large and obvious as it is to overlook something small and niggling, and that the large things one overlooks can often cause problems. ~ Neil Gaiman in Stardust
- August 11
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
- August 12
Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong. ~ George Soros
- August 13
The Supreme Ethical Rule: Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thy self. ~ Felix Adler
- August 14
It's always worth while before you do anything to consider whether it's going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary. ~ John Galsworthy
- August 15
The aggressive and quite illogical idea of a single religion for all mankind, a religion universal by the very force of its narrowness, one set of dogmas, one cult, one system of ceremonies, one ecclesiastical ordinance, one array of prohibitions and injunctions which all minds must accept on peril of persecution by men and spiritual rejection or eternal punishment by God, that grotesque creation of human unreason which has been the parent of so much intolerance, cruelty and obscurantism and aggressive fanaticism, has never been able to take firm hold of the Indian mentality. ~ Sri Aurobindo
- August 16
The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern commander. ~ T. E. Lawrence
- August 17
I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized. ~ Davy Crockett
- August 18
What we say is the truth is what everybody accepts ... Psychiatry: it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith. ~ Madeleine Stowe as "Dr. Kathryn Railly" in Twelve Monkeys
- August 19
Vast is the field of Science ... the more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know. ~ Samuel Richardson
- August 20
The world we live in is driven not solely by mindless physical forces but, more crucially, by subjective human values. Human values become the underlying key to world change. ~ Roger Wolcott Sperry
- August 21
- August 22
I wish to write down my musical dreams in a spirit of utter self-detachment. I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naïve candour of a child. No doubt, this simple musical grammar will jar on some people. It is bound to offend the partisans of deceit and artifice. I foresee that and rejoice at it. ~ Claude Debussy
- August 23
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
- August 24
It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is. ~ Jorge Luis Borges
- August 25
The humourless as a bunch don't just not know what's funny, they don't know what's serious. They have no common sense, either, and shouldn't be trusted with anything. ~ Martin Amis
- August 26
Our sufferings have taught us that no nation is sufficient unto itself, and that our prosperity depends in the long run, not upon the failure of our neighbors but their successes. ~ John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir
- August 27
The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions — none more so than the most capable. ~ Theodore Dreiser
- August 28
Moderation, the Golden Mean, the Aristonmetron, is the secret of wisdom and of happiness. But it does not mean embracing an unadventurous mediocrity: rather it is an elaborate balancing-act, a feat of intellectual skill demanding constant vigilance. Its aim is a reconciliation of opposites. ~ Robertson Davies
- August 29
The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck
- August 30
Live, and be happy, and make others so. ~ Mary Shelley
- August 31
Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. ~ William Saroyan