Wikiquote:Quote of the day/February 2022

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Today is Wednesday, December 25, 2024; it is now 22:59 (UTC)

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February 1

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

~ Langston Hughes ~

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February 2

I have loved my NFL career, and now it is time to focus my time and energy on other things that require my attention.
I've done a lot of reflecting the past week and have asked myself difficult questions. And I am so proud of what we have achieved. My teammates, coaches, fellow competitors, and fans deserve 100% of me, but right now, it's best I leave the field of play to the next generation of dedicated and committed athletes.

~ Tom Brady ~

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February 3

The state of conformity is an imitation of grace.

By a strange mystery — which is connected with the power of the social element — a profession can confer on quite ordinary men in their exercise of it, virtues which, if they were extended to all circumstances of life, would make of them heroes or saints.

~ Simone Weil ~

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February 4

We remain vigilant. We remain prepared.
Last night's operation took a major terrorist leader off the battlefield. And it sent a strong message to terrorists around the world: We will come after you and find you.
Once again, today, we continue our unceasing effort to keep the American people safe and to strengthen the security of our Allies and partners around the world.
I want to thank you all. And may God bless you. And may God protect our troops.

~ Joe Biden ~

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February 5

There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, that I possessed unilateral authority to reject electoral college votes. And I heard this week, President Trump said I had the right to "overturn the election". But President Trump is wrong — I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president. Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election.

~ Mike Pence ~

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February 6

With the destructive power of today's weapons, keeping the peace is not just a goal; it's a sacred obligation. But maintaining peace requires more than sincerity and idealism — more than optimism and good will. As you know well, peace is a product of hard, strenuous labor by those dedicated to its preservation. It requires realism, not wishful thinking.

~ Ronald Reagan ~

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February 7

Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT.

~ Charles Dickens ~

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February 8

It is the glistening and softly spoken lie; the amiable fallacy; the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the partisan, the merciful lie of the friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that black mystery over humanity, through which we thank any man who pierces, as we would thank one who dug a well in a desert.

~ John Ruskin ~

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February 9

Truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love.

~ J. M. Coetzee ~

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February 10

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! he is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty.

~ Charles Lamb ~

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February 11

The most important step in getting a job done is the recognition of the problem. Once I recognize a problem I usually can think of someone who can work it out better than I could.

~ Leó Szilárd ~

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February 12

More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar
Utterly this fair garden we might win.

~ George Meredith ~

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February 13

Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money.

~ Robert H. Jackson ~

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February 14

Love does not rule; but it trains, and that is more.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~

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February 15

I’m totally not kidding … Life is too short. This is all too hard to do to actually be kidding about the whole thing.

~ Miranda July ~

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February 16

I don't have any answers. Use your common sense. Be nice. This is the best I can do. All the trouble in the world is human trouble. Well, that's not true. But when cancer cells run amok and burst out of the prostate and take over the liver and lymph glands and end up killing everything in the body including themselves, they certainly are acting like some humans we know.

~ P. J. O'Rourke ~

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February 17

Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. In order to improve society it is first necessary to understand the laws by which society lives. The operation of these laws being impervious to our preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of failure.
Realism, believing as it does in the objectivity of the laws of politics, must also believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that reflects, however imperfectly and one-sidedly, these objective laws. It believes also, then, in the possibility of distinguishing in politics between truth and opinion — between what is true objectively and rationally, supported by evidence and illuminated by reason, and what is only a subjective judgment, divorced from the facts as they are and informed by prejudice and wishful thinking.

~ Hans Morgenthau ~

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February 18

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

~ Toni Morrison ~

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February 19

Art today can only be revolutionary, that is, it must aspire at the complete and radical reconstruction of society, even if for no other reason than to emancipate intellectual creation from the chains which obstruct it and to allow all mankind to rise to the heights that only geniuses could reach in the past.

~ André Breton ~

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February 20

With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid, and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us.

~ Kurt Cobain ~

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February 21

Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.

~ W. H. Auden ~

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February 22

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

~ George Washington ~

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February 23

There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.

~ W. E. B. Du Bois ~

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February 24

Hindsight is notably cleverer than foresight.

~ Chester W. Nimitz ~

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February 25

I want to address today the people of Russia. I am addressing you not as a president, I am addressing you as a citizen of Ukraine. More than 2,000 km of the common border is dividing us. Along this border your troops are stationed, almost 200,000 soldiers, thousands of military vehicles. Your leaders approved them to make a step forward, to the territory of another country. And this step can be the beginning of a big war on European continent.
We know for sure that we don't need the war. Not a Cold War, not a hot war. Not a hybrid one. But if we'll be attacked by the troops, if they try to take our country away from us, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. Not attack, but defend ourselves. And when you will be attacking us, you will see our faces, not our backs, but our faces.
The war is a big disaster, and this disaster has a high price. With every meaning of this word. People lose money, reputation, quality of life, they lose freedom. But the main thing is that people lose their loved ones, they lose themselves.
They told you that Ukraine is posing a threat to Russia. It was not the case in the past, not in the present, it's not going to be in the future. You are demanding security guarantees from NATO, but we also demand security guarantees. Security for Ukraine from you, from Russia and other guarantees of the Budapest memorandum.
But our main goal is peace in Ukraine and the safety of our people, Ukrainians. For that we are ready to have talks with anybody, including you, in any format, on any platform. The war will deprive guarantees from everybody — nobody will have guarantees of security anymore. Who will suffer the most from it? The people. Who doesn't want it the most? The people! Who can stop it? The people.

~ Volodymyr Zelenskyy ~

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February 26

We are seeing Russian military operations inside the sovereign territory of Ukraine on a scale that Europe has not seen in decades.
Day after day, I have been clear that such unilateral measures conflict directly with the United Nations Charter. … I repeat my appeal from last night to President Putin:
Stop the military operation.
Bring the troops back to Russia.
We know the toll of war.
With deaths rising, we are seeing images of fear, anguish and terror in every corner of Ukraine.
People – everyday innocent people – always pay the highest price.

~ António Guterres ~

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February 27

We aren’t going to lay down weapons. We will protect the country ... Our weapon is our truth, and our truth is that it's our land, our country, our children. And we will defend all of that.

~ Volodymyr Zelenskyy ~

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February 28

The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.

~ Volodymyr Zelenskyy ~

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Today is Wednesday, December 25, 2024; it is now 22:59 (UTC)