Wikiquote:Quote of the day/July

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Today is Thursday, March 23, 2023; it is now 18:54 (UTC)


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This page lists quote of the day proposals specifically for dates in the month of July, and quotes proposed should ideally have some relation to the day, or persons born on it, though sometimes exceptions can be made, usually for notable quotes that relate to recent events, such as the death of prominent individuals. Developing ideas of people or works to quote on specific days can be explored through the Wikipedia page: List of historical anniversaries. The numeric section heading of each date is also a direct link to the Wikipedia list of births, deaths, and other events which occured on that date.

See also: July 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2013 · 2014 · 2015 · 2016 · 2017 · 2018 · 2019 · 2020 · 2021

Ranking system:

4 : Excellent - should definitely be used.
3 : Very Good - strong desire to see it used.
2 : Good - some desire to see it used.
1 : Acceptable - but with no particular desire to see it used.
0 : Not acceptable - not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
2004
A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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
  • celebrating the start of the British EU presidency on July 1, 2005
  • proposed by AllanHainey
2006
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (born 1 July 1742)
2007
It is almost impossible to bear the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody’s beard. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (date of birth)
2008
We're on a mission from God. ~ Elwood J. Blues, in The Blues Brothers
2009
There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible. ~ Gottfried Leibniz (born 1 July 1646)
2010
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
2011
The truth is too simple: one must always get there by a complicated route. ~ George Sand
2012
One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness — simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience.
~ George Sand ~
2013
Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.
~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg ~
2014
If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.
~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg ~
2015
Experiment and reflection enable us to introduce a significance into what is not legible, either to us or at all … the gradation we establish in the order of creatures: all this is not in the things but in us. In general we cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.
~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg ~
2016
In the stormy days of our youth, we imagine that solitude is a sure refuge from the assaults of life, a certain balm for the wounds of battle. This is a serious mistake, and experience teaches us that, if we cannot live in peace with our fellow-men, neither romantic raptures nor aesthetic enjoyment will ever fill the abyss gaping at the bottom of our hearts.
~ George Sand ~
2017
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
~ Robert Stanley Weir ~
2018
We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves. Even if my philosophy does not extend to discovering anything new, it does nevertheless possess the courage to regard as questionable what has long been thought true.
~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg ~
2019
Truth comes from the mouths of fools and children: I wish every good mind which feels an inclination for satire would reflect that the finest satirist always has something of both in him.
~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg ~
2020
Every morning I pick up my newspaper, get the obituary section, see if I'm listed, and if not, I have my breakfast.
~ Carl Reiner ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
2021
Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.
~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg ~
2022
I have dedicated my career to public service because I love this country and our Constitution and the rights that make us free. … It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States — but we've made it. … So as I take on this new role, I strongly believe that this is a moment in which all Americans can take great pride. We have come a long way toward perfecting our union. In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States.
And it is an honor — the honor of a lifetime — for me to have this chance to join the Court, to promote the rule of law at the highest level, and to do my part to carry our shared project of democracy and equal justice under law forward, into the future.
~ Ketanji Brown Jackson ~
  • proposed by Kalki; after her recent swearing in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
With great power comes great responsibility. ~ Stan Lee
2005
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 (born 2 July 1877)
2006
When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do. ~ Hermann Hesse
2007

There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come can't be undone.

~ Wisława Szymborska ~

2008
There are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.
~ Richard Henry Stoddard ~
2009
Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another. ~ Hermann Hesse
2010
Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know." ~ Wisława Szymborska
2011
Every symbol and combination of symbols led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created. ~ Hermann Hesse
2012
Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.
~ Hermann Hesse ~
2013
Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity.
~ Hermann Hesse ~
2014
Whether you and I and a few others will renew the world someday remains to be seen. But within ourselves we must renew it each day, otherwise we just aren't serious. Don't forget that!
~ Hermann Hesse ~
2015
Nothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born.
~ Hermann Hesse ~
2016
I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams — like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.
Each man's life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can.
~ Hermann Hesse ~
2017
I feared that the enemy might have nearly surrounded the Little Round Top, and only a desperate chance was left for us. My ammunition was soon exhausted. My men were firing their last shot and getting ready to "club" their muskets.
It was imperative to strike before we were struck by this overwhelming force in a hand-to-hand fight, which we could not probably have withstood or survived. At that crisis, I ordered the bayonet. The word was enough.
~ Joshua Chamberlain ~
2018
For the sake of research,
the big picture
and definitive conclusions,
one would have to transcend time,
in which everything scurries and whirls.
~ Wisława Szymborska ~
2019
Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
~ Wisława Szymborska ~
2020
Granted, in daily speech, where we don't stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like "the ordinary world," "ordinary life," "the ordinary course of events"… But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world.
It looks like poets will always have their work cut out for them
~ Wisława Szymborska ~
2021
The doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
~ Hermann Hesse ~
2022
All the tasks are in themselves small, but each one has to be carried out at its proper hour, and the day has far more tasks than hours. That is well; one would not want it to be different. But if we ever think, between classroom, archives, secretariat, consulting room, meetings, and official journeys — if we ever think of the freedom we possessed and have lost, the freedom for self-chosen tasks, for unlimited, far-flung studies, we may well feel the greatest yearning for those days, and imagine that if we ever had such freedom again we would fully enjoy its pleasures and potentialities.
~ Hermann Hesse ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
You don't understand. I could'a had class. I could'a been a contender. ~ Marlon Brando as "Terry Malloy" in On the Waterfront (recent death)
2005
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 (born 3 July 1883)
2006
I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead. ~ Tom Stoppard (born 3 July 1937)
2007
We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. ~ Franz Kafka
2008
Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. ~ Franz Kafka (date of birth)
2009
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached. ~ Franz Kafka
2010
I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No... not the artful postures of love, not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening, but love that... overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable — like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. Love — like there has never been in a play. ~ Tom Stoppard in Shakespeare in Love
2011
You can only be young once but you can be immature forever. ~ Dave Barry
2012
An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.
~ Tom Stoppard ~
2013
What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

~ William Henry Davies ~
2014
How the hell do I know what I find incredible? Credibility is an expanding field... Sheer disbelief hardly registers on the face before the head is nodding with all the wisdom of instant hindsight.
~ Tom Stoppard ~
2015
This is what makes time travel possible: the flux capacitor!
~ Doc Brown ~
in
~ Back to the Future ~
  • proposed by Lyle for an anniversary of the film's release in 1985; used on the 30th anniversary.
2016
Whenever an angel says "Be not afraid!" you'd better start worrying. A big assignment is on the way.
~ Elie Wiesel ~
  • Added to QOTD array in tribute to Wiesel, after his recent death.
All human errors are impatience, the premature breaking off of what is methodical, an apparent fencing in of the apparent thing.
~ Franz Kafka ~
2017
There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.
One can disintegrate the world by means of very strong light. For weak eyes the world becomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, for eyes weaker still it becomes shamefaced and smashes anyone who dares to gaze upon it.
~ Franz Kafka ~
2018
All writers in some insane place believe that to write is a holy chore — that what one wishes to do is speak to one’s time, to make a difference, to say: "I was here. I was a force for good in some way."
~ Harlan Ellison ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
2019
One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.
~ Franz Kafka ~
2020
Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.
~ Tom Stoppard ~
in
~ Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead ~
2021
The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.
~ Franz Kafka ~
2022
We cross our bridges when we come to them, and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
~ Tom Stoppard ~
in
~ Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
"...for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." ~ closing lines of The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States Of America written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, and approved as an official document of united will and determination, July 4, 1776.
2005
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. ~ United States Declaration of Independence
2006
It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne (born 4 July 1804)
2007
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
2008
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
2009
Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important, in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
2010
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
2011
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ~ Thomas Jefferson in the US Declaration of Independence
2012
So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
~ Lewis Carroll ~
in
~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ~
  • proposed by Kalki (First version of the story of Alice first told upon 4 July 1862, and first published on 4 July 1865)
2013
Well, if I eat it, and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!
~ Lewis Carroll ~
in
~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ~
  • proposed by Kalki (First version of the story of Alice first told upon 4 July 1862, and first published on 4 July 1865)
2014
Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay,
The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away:
Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.
…
Oh, come as comes the morn.
Serene and strong and full of faith, America, arise,
With steady hope and mighty help to join thy brave Allies.
O dearest country of my heart, home of the high desire,
Make clean thy soul for sacrifice on Freedom’s altar-fire:
For thou must suffer, thou must fight, until the warlords cease,
And all the peoples lift their heads in liberty and peace.
~ Henry van Dyke ~
2015
"It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole — and yet — and yet — it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write one."
~ Lewis Carroll ~
in
~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ~
2016
Let us cast off our hatreds. Let us candidly accept our treaties and our natural obligations of peace. We know and everyone knows that these old systems, antagonisms, and reliance on force have failed. If the world has made any progress, it has been the result of the development of other ideals. If we are to maintain and perfect our own civilization, if we are to be of any benefit to the rest of mankind, we must turn aside from the thoughts of destruction and cultivate the thoughts of construction. We can not place our main reliance upon material forces. We must reaffirm and reinforce our ancient faith in truth and justice, in charitableness and tolerance. We must make our supreme commitment to the everlasting spiritual forces of life. We must mobilize the conscience of mankind.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
2017
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
~ Thomas Jefferson ~
in
~ The US Declaration of Independence ~
2018
Let us forget the other names of American statesmen, that have been stamped upon these hills, but still call the loftiest — WASHINGTON. Mountains are Earth's undecaying monuments. They must stand while she endures, and never should be consecrated to the mere great men of their own age and country, but to the mighty ones alone, whose glory is universal, and whom all time will render illustrious.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne ~
  • proposed by Kalki, for Hawthorne's birthday, and reference to a primary founder of the first American democratic republic on it's Independence Day.
2019
You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets "iffy", and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.
~ Erma Bombeck ~
2020
Something in all human beings makes them want to do the right thing. Not that this desire always prevails; oftentimes it is overcome and they turn towards evil. But some power is constantly calling them back. Ever there comes a resistance to wrongdoing. When bad conditions begun to accumulate, when the forces of darkness become prevalent, always they are ultimately doomed to fail, as the better angels of human nature are roused to resistance.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
2021
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.
~ Thomas Jefferson ~
2022
Democracy is not a tearing down; it is a building up. It is not denial of the divine right of kings; it supplements that same with the assertion of the divine right of all men. It does not destroy; it fulfills. It is the consummation of all theories of government, the spirit of which all the nations of the earth must yield. It is the great constructive course of the ages. It is the alpha and omega of man's relation to man, the beginning and the end. There is, and can be, no more doubt of the triumphs of democracy in human affairs than there is of the triumph of gravitation in the physical world. The only question is how and when. Its foundation lays hold upon eternity.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. ~ Elvis Presley
  • chosen by Nanobug, honoring Presley's first commercial hit, "That's All Right (Mama)", recorded on 5 July 1954. (This was not designated as a "Quote of the Day" but it did appear for a time in the earliest logos prior to the first official QOTD on 11 July 2003).
2004
"We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness." ~ Thomas Jefferson in an early draft of The Declaration of Independence.
2005
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 (marking the recent success of the Deep Impact space mission to comet Tempel 1)
2006
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing. ~ Jean Cocteau (born 5 July 1889)
2007
There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them. ~ Jean Cocteau
2008
Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet’s job. The rest is literature. ~ Jean Cocteau
2009
We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel. ~ Jean Cocteau
2010
Life is not theory. It is reality, with inherent duties to everything and everyone. ~ Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka
2011
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities. ~ Jean Cocteau
2012
One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
2013
Beauty is always the result of an accident. Of a violent lapse between acquired habits and those yet to be acquired. It baffles and disgusts. It may even horrify. Once the new habit has been acquired, the accident ceases to be an accident. It becomes classical and loses its shock value.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
2014
The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend to humanity.
~ P. T. Barnum ~
2015
Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
  • selected by Kalki, to replace another which had been proposed by Kalki, and initially used for a few minutes, but which had already been used in 2006.
2016
Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business.
~ P. T. Barnum ~
2017
Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master.
~ P. T. Barnum ~
2018
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
2019
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.
~ Isaac Newton ~
  • proposed by Jeff Q, the third law of motion, on the anniversary of the publication of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (5 July 1687)
2020
The plan of "counting the chickens before they are hatched" is an error of ancient date, but it does not seem to improve by age.
~ P. T. Barnum ~
2021
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
2022
I am a showman by profession … and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.
~ P. T. Barnum ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." ~ Opening statement of The Declaration of Independence of The United States of America, composed primarily by Thomas Jefferson (Third of three from The Declaration of Independence or drafts of it, that were quoted July 4,5, & 6 of 2004)
2005
I have not yet begun to fight! ~ John Paul Jones (born 6 July 1747)
2006
They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality. ~ Frida Kahlo (born 6 July 1907)
2007
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935)
2008
I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way. ~ John Paul Jones
2009
Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. True peace with oneself and with the world around us can only be achieved through the development of mental peace. ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (date of birth)
2010
I believe that at every level of society — familial, tribal, national and international — the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities. ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
2011
We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet. ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
2012
Our gains are not measured in the losses of others. They are counted in the conflicts we avert, the prosperity we share and the peace we extend.
~ George W. Bush ~
2013
I feel that the essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others. When you have a pure, sincere motivation, then you have right attitude toward others based on kindness, compassion, love and respect. Practice brings the clear realisation of the oneness of all human beings and the importance of others benefiting by your actions.
~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama ~
2014
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama ~
2015
With the ever-growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play by reminding us of our humanity. There is no contradiction between the two. Each gives us valuable insights into the other. Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things. This understanding is crucial if we are to take positive and decisive action on the pressing global concern with the environment. I believe all religions pursue the same goals, that of cultivating human goodness and bringing happiness to all human beings. Though the means might appear different the ends are the same.
~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama ~
2016
I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion and elimination of ignorance, selfishness and greed.
The problems we face today, violent conflicts, destruction of nature, poverty, hunger, and so on, are human-created problems which can be resolved through human effort, understanding and the development of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share.
Although I have found my own Buddhist religion helpful in generating love and compassion, even for those we consider our enemies, I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion.
~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama ~
2017
Many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destination is set: liberty and justice for all.
~ George W. Bush ~
2018
Our identity as a nation — unlike many other nations — is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood. Being an American involves the embrace of high ideals and civic responsibility. We become the heirs of Thomas Jefferson by accepting the ideal of human dignity found in the Declaration of Independence. We become the heirs of James Madison by understanding the genius and values of the U.S. Constitution. We become the heirs of Martin Luther King, Jr., by recognizing one another not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. This means that people of every race, religion, and ethnicity can be fully and equally American. It means that bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed. And it means that the very identity of our nation depends on the passing of civic ideals to the next generation. ... It is the great advantage of free societies that we creatively adapt to challenges, without the direction of some central authority. Self-correction is the secret strength of freedom. We are a nation with a history of resilience and a genius for renewal. Right now, one of our worst national problems is a deficit of confidence. But the cause of freedom justifies all our faith and effort. It still inspires men and women in the darkest corners of the world, and it will inspire a rising generation. The American spirit does not say, “We shall manage,” or “We shall make the best of it.” It says, “We shall overcome.” And that is exactly what we will do, with the help of God and one another.
~ George W. Bush ~
2019
Down through the years, African Americans have upheld the ideals of America by exposing laws and habits contradicting those ideals. … At every turn, the struggle for equality was resisted by many of the powerful. And some have said we should not judge their failures by the standards of a later time, yet in every time there were men and women who clearly saw this sin and called it by name. We can fairly judge the past by the standards of President John Adams, who called slavery "an evil of colossal magnitude". We can discern eternal standards in the deeds of William Wilberforce and John Quincy Adams and Harriet Beecher Stowe and Abraham Lincoln. These men and women, black and white, burned with a zeal for freedom and they left behind a different and better nation. Their moral vision caused Americans to examine our hearts, to correct our Constitution and to teach our children the dignity and equality of every person of every race. … My Nation's journey toward justice has not been easy, and it is not over. The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destination is set: liberty and justice for all.
~ George W. Bush ~
2020
It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.
~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama ~
2021
I am optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare us for a kinder, happier twenty-first century.
I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we succeed in building a better world through human understanding and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.
~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama ~
2022
As to war, I am and always was a great enemy, at the same time a warrior the greater part of my life, and were I young again, should still be a warrior while ever this country should be invaded and I lived — a Defensive war I think a righteous war to Defend my life & property & that of my family, in my own opinion, is right & justifiable in the sight of God.
An offensive war, I believe to be wrong and would therefore have nothing to do with it, having no right to meddle with another man's property, his ox or his ass, his man servant or his maid servant or anything that is his. Neither does he have a right to meddle with anything that is mine, if he does I have a right to defend it by force.
~ Daniel Morgan ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. ~ Søren Kierkegaard
2005
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 (born 7 July 1907)
2006
Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense. ~ Robert A. Heinlein (born 7 July 1907)
2007
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it. ~ Robert A. Heinlein
2008
Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. ~ Robert A. Heinlein
2009
Magic is not science, it is a collection of ways to do things — ways that work but often we don't know why. ~ Robert A. Heinlein in Glory Road
2010
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. ~ Robert A. Heinlein in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
2011
Any social organization does well enough if it isn't rigid. The framework doesn't matter as long as there is enough looseness to permit that one man in a multitude to display his genius. Most so-called social scientists seem to think that organization is everything. It is almost nothing — except when it is a straitjacket. It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros. ~ Robert A. Heinlein in Glory Road
2012
Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo. Oh, a sense of sin comes from violating the customs of your tribe. But breaking custom is not sin even when it feels so; sin is wronging another person.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
in
~ Glory Road ~
2013
A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame … as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world … aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
in
~ The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress ~

2014

A properly balanced sword is the most versatile weapon for close quarters ever devised. Pistols and guns are all offense, no defense; close on him fast and a man with a gun can't shoot, he has to stop you before you reach him. Close on a man carrying a blade and you'll be spitted like a roast pigeon — unless you have a blade and can use it better than he can. A sword never jams, never has to be reloaded, is always ready. Its worst shortcoming is that it takes great skill and patient, loving practice to gain that skill; it can't be taught to raw recruits in weeks, nor even months.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
2015
There was so much to grok, so little to grok from.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
in
~ Stranger in a Strange Land ~
2016
There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that’s philosophy. Two: Record many facts. Try to see a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that’s science. Three: Awareness that you live in a malevolent universe controlled by Murphy’s Law, sometimes offset in part by Brewster’s Factor: that’s engineering.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
2017
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
in
~ Time Enough for Love ~
2018
There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
in
~ Stranger in a Strange Land ~
2019
The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your own kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called "patriotism."
Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to the hope that H. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did, it is now possible that the human race will never die.
Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
2020
In this complex world, science, the scientific method, and the consequences of the scientific method are central to everything the human race is doing and to wherever we are going. If we blow ourselves up we will do it by misapplication of science; if we manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent application of science.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
2021
I would be disappointed if everything I saw turned out to be something Western Electric will build once Bell Labs works the bugs out. There ought to be some magic, somewhere, just for flavor.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
in
~ Glory Road ~
2022
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Why is all around us here as if some lesser god had made the world, but had not force to shape it as he would, till the High God behold it from beyond, and enter it, and make it beautiful? Or else as if the world were wholly fair, but that these eyes of men are dense and dim, and have not power to see it as it is: perchance, because we see not to the close... ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Idylls of the King
2005
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 (born 8 July 1621)
2006
It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive — to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are. ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (born 8 July 1926)
2007
Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it. ~ Jean de La Fontaine
2008
As far as service goes, it can take the form of a million things. To do service, you don't have to be a doctor working in the slums for free, or become a social worker. Your position in life and what you do doesn't matter as much as how you do what you do. ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
2009
Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish. ~ Jean de La Fontaine
2010
There must be understanding between the artist and the people. In the best ages of art that has always been the case. Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius — and I count myself among these — have to restore the lost connection once more. ~ Käthe Kollwitz (born July 8, 1867)
2011
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (date of birth)
2012
By the work one knows the workman.
~ Jean de La Fontaine ~
2013
We make progress in society only if we stop cursing and complaining about its shortcomings and have the courage to do something about them.
~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross ~
2014

Come to the bridal chamber, Death,
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first born's breath;
Come, when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke:
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm
With banquet song and dance and wine;
And thou art terrible: — the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear,
Of agony, are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word,
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.

~ Fitz-Greene Halleck ~
2015
Bring me your children hither.
...
Unto this twain, man-child and womanchild,
I give the passion of this element;
This seed of longing, substance of this love;
This power, this purity, this annihilation.
Let their hands light the altar of the world.
'T is yours forever. I have brought it home!
~ William Vaughn Moody ~
2016
I would rather hire a man with enthusiasm, than a man who knows everything.
~ John D. Rockefeller ~
2017
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
~ Marianne Williamson ~
2018
The thought system that dominates our culture is laced with selfish values, and relinquishing those values is a lot easier said than done. The journey to a pure heart can be highly disorienting. For years we may have worked for power, money and prestige. Now all of a sudden we’ve learned that those are just the values of a dying world. ... The news isn’t how bad things are. The news is how good they could be. And our own activity could be part of the unfolding of Heaven on earth. There is no more powerful motivation than to feel we’re being used in the creation of a world where love has healed all wounds.
We are no longer ambitious for ourselves, but are rather inspired by the vision of a healed world. Inspiration rearranges our energies. It sources within us a new power and direction.
~ Marianne Williamson ~
2019
A miracle worker is an artist of the soul. There’s no higher art than living a good life. An artist informs the world of what’s available behind the masks we all wear. That’s what we’re all here to do. The reason so many of us are obsessed with becoming stars is because we’re not yet starring in our own lives. The cosmic spotlight isn’t pointed at you; it radiates from within you.
~ Marianne Williamson ~
2020
The ground on which we’ll unite as Americans is the higher ground of moral repair. Not Left or Right, or even Democrats or Republicans. We’ll unite as Americans, having come to realize that aligning public policy with the goodness in our hearts is our best and only path forward.
~ Marianne Williamson ~
2021
Purity of heart will not make us poor. The exaltation of poverty as a spiritual virtue is of the ego, not the spirit. A person acting from a motivation of contribution and service rises to such a level of moral authority, that worldly success is a natural result.
Give all your gifts away in service to the world. If you want to paint, don’t wait for a grant. Paint a wall in your town that looks drab and uninviting. You never know who’s going to see that wall. Whatever it is you want to do, give it away in service to your community.
~ Marianne Williamson ~
2022
It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister. … I know that there will be many people who are relieved and perhaps quite a few who will also be disappointed. And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them's the breaks. … I want to thank you, the British public, for the immense privilege that you have given me. And I want you to know that from now on until the new prime minister is in place, your interests will be served and the government of the country will be carried on.
~ Boris Johnson ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions...
2004
Why can't you harness Might so that it works for Right? I know it sounds nonsense, but, I mean, you can't just say there is no such thing. The Might is there, in the bad half of people, and you can't neglect it. You can't cut it out but you might be able to direct it, if you see what I mean, so that it was useful instead of bad. ~ T. H. White in The Once and Future King
2005
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, who went into the infamous attic on 9 July 1942 (Note: Wikipedia's July 9 page earlier claimed that Anne Frank and her family moved to the attic on this date. However, both her diary and the Müller biography state this happened on 6 July 1942.Wikipedia articles for July 9, July 6, and Anne Frank have been updated to reflect this.)
2006
I can get excitement watching rain on a puddle. And then I paint it. Now, I admit, there are not too many people who would find that exciting. But I would. And I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is. ~ David Hockney (born 9 July 1937)
2007
There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death. ~ Bertrand Russell (in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto issued on 9 July 1955).
2008
Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque. ~ U. G. Krishnamurti
2009
As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth — whatever the truth may be — that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life. ~ June Jordan
2010
We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties? ~ Bertrand Russell (in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto issued on 9 July 1955).
2011
If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. - William Jennings Bryan delivered the "Cross of Gold" speech 9 July 1896.
2012
If you have the courage to touch life for the first time, you will never know what hit you. Everything man has thought, felt and experienced is gone, and nothing is put in its place.
~ U. G. Krishnamurti ~
2013
The way we see things is constantly changing. At the moment the way we see things has been left a lot to the camera. That shouldn't necessarily be.
~ David Hockney ~
2014
Truth shall be firmly established, while aught else besides it is sure to perish.
~ Báb ~
2015
Verily God is able to convert light into fire whenever He pleaseth; surely He is potent over all things. And were He to declare a person whom ye regard alien to the truth as being akin thereto, err not by questioning His decision in your fancies, for He Who is the Sovereign Truth createth things through the power of His behest. Verily God transmuteth fire into light as He willeth, and indeed potent is He over all things.
~ The Báb ~
2016
In every nation thou beholdest unnumbered spiritual leaders who are bereft of true discernment, and among every people thou dost encounter myriads of adherents who are devoid of the same characteristic. Ponder for a while in thy heart, have pity on thyself and turn not aside thine attention from proofs and evidences. However, seek not proofs and evidences after thine idle fancy; but rather base thy proofs upon what God hath appointed. Moreover, know thou that neither being a man of learning nor being a follower is in itself a source of glory. If thou art a man of learning, thy knowledge becometh an honour, and if thou art a follower, thine adherence unto leadership becometh an honour, only when these conform to the good-pleasure of God.
~ The Báb ~
2017
In the time of the First Manifestation the Primal Will appeared in Adam; in the day of Noah It became known in Noah; in the day of Abraham in Him; and so in the day of Moses; the day of Jesus; the day of Muḥammad, the Apostle of God; the day of the ‘Point of the Bayán’; the day of Him Whom God shall make manifest; and the day of the One Who will appear after Him Whom God shall make manifest. Hence the inner meaning of the words uttered by the Apostle of God, "I am all the Prophets", inasmuch as what shineth resplendent in each one of Them hath been and will ever remain the one and the same sun.
~ The Báb ~
2018
As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth — whatever the truth may be — that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life.
~ June Jordan ~
  • proposed by Kalki (mistakenly repeated, after first being used in 2009 on this date).
2019
I wanted to live my life so that people would know unmistakably that I am alive, so that when I finally die people will know the difference for sure between my living and my death.
~ June Jordan ~
2020
Poetry for the People rests upon a belief that the art of telling the truth is a necessary and a healthy way to create powerful, and positive, connections among people who, otherwise, remain (unknown and unaware) strangers. The goal is not to kill connections but, rather, to create and to deepen them among truly different men and women.
~ June Jordan ~
2021
I cherish the mercy and the grace of women’s work. But I know there is new work that we must undertake as well: that new work will make defeat detestable to us. That new women’s work will mean we will not die trying to stand up: we will live that way: standing up.
I came too late to help my mother to her feet.
By way of everlasting thanks to all of the women who have helped me to stay alive I am working never to be late again.
~ June Jordan ~
2022
The kind of society that Japan should aim at is a society in which the efforts of people are rewarded, a society in which there is no stratification into winners and losers, and a society in which ways of working, learning, and living are diverse and multi-tracked — in other words, a society of opportunity where everyone has a chance to challenge again. If there are people who sense they are facing inequality, it is the role of politics to shed light on them.
~ Shinzō Abe ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of his recent death.
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! ~ Michael Palin as "Dennis" in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
2005
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 (born 10 July 1856)
2006
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of a planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation of those who are to come and point the way. ~ Nikola Tesla (born 10 July 1856)
2007
The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is. ~ Marcel Proust
2008
Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity. ~ Nikola Tesla
2009
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer. ~ William Blackstone
2010
Universal peace as a result of cumulative effort through centuries past might come into existence quickly — not unlike a crystal that suddenly forms in a solution which has been slowly prepared. ~ Nikola Tesla
2011
When from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. ~ Marcel Proust
2012
We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.
~ Marcel Proust ~
2013
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
~ Arthur Ashe ~
2014
Since the beginning of time, children have not liked to study. They would much rather play, and if you have their interests at heart, you will let them learn while they play; they will find that what they have mastered is child's play.
~ Carl Orff ~
2015
A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe.
~ Nikola Tesla ~
2016
People are curious. A few people are. They will be driven to find things out, even trivial things. They will put things together, knowing all along that they may be mistaken. You see them going around with notebooks, scraping the dirt off gravestones, reading microfilm, just in the hope of seeing this trickle in time, making a connection, rescuing one thing from the rubbish.
~ Alice Munro ~
2017
Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antaeus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
~ Nikola Tesla ~
2018
If at least, time enough were alloted to me to accomplish my work, I would not fail to mark it with the seal of Time, the idea of which imposed itself upon me with so much force to-day, and I would therein describe men, if need be, as monsters occupying a place in Time infinitely more important than the restricted one reserved for them in space, a place, on the contrary, prolonged immeasurably since, simultaneously touching widely separated years and the distant periods they have lived through — between which so many days have ranged themselves — they stand like giants immersed in Time.
~ Marcel Proust ~
2019
United teams win. Divided teams lose. Play to our multicultural strengths. Stop preaching the messages of hate and division in your campaign themes.
And now, a message to both parties. Please remember that those who have participated in the United We Stand America movement are intelligent, thinking, responsible people. They are not unprogrammed robots who can be emotionally swayed by your negative ads or messages of fear and divisiveness. Bluntly, you will have to face the issues to get their votes. Mud wrestling and messages aimed at destroying your opponent and his loved ones won't work.
I love the American people and I am sure that you do, too. I owe them a debt I can never repay and so do you. Today, their Government is a mess, and they want it fixed. By joining together as the owners of this great country, they can solve these problems.
As I've said before, it is time to clean out the barn — join us — pick up a shovel. Get to work!
~ Ross Perot ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
2020
It's the rich and powerful, by and large, who glamorize immorality, but it's the poor and vulnerable who pay the price.
~ Robert P. George ~
2021
By art alone we are able to get outside ourselves, to know what another sees of this universe which for him is not ours, the landscapes of which would remain as unknown to us as those of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world, our own, we see it multiplied and as many original artists as there are, so many worlds are at our disposal, differing more widely from each other than those which roll round the infinite and which, whether their name be Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us their unique rays many centuries after the hearth from which they emanate is extinguished.
This labour of the artist to discover a means of apprehending beneath matter and experience, beneath words, something different from their appearance, is of an exactly contrary nature to the operation in which pride, passion, intelligence and habit are constantly engaged within us when we spend our lives without self-communion, accumulating as though to hide our true impressions, the terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life.
~ Marcel Proust ~
2022
The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains.
~ Marcel Proust ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
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. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • First "Quote of the Day" at Wikiquote, selected by Nanobug
2004
The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and God fulfils himself in many ways lest one good custom should corrupt the world. ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Idylls of the King
2005
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 (born 11 July 1767)
2006
Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. ~ John Quincy Adams (born 11 July 1767)
2007
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~ E. B. White
2008
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed. ~ E. B. White
2009
I can never join with my voice in the toast which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes. I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right. ~ John Quincy Adams (in response to Stephen Decatur's famous phrase, "our country, right or wrong". The Latin phrase is an ancient one that can be translated as : "Let justice be done though heaven should fall.")
2010
Life's meaning has always eluded me and I guess it always will. But I love it just the same. ~ E. B. White
2011
"In God We Trust." … It is simple, direct, gracefully phrased: it always sounds well — In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true. And in a measure it is true — half the nation trusts in Him. That half has decided it. ~ Mark Twain
2012
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
~ Harper Lee ~
2013
One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
~ E. B. White ~
2014
Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.
~ E. B. White ~
2015
Before you can be an internationalist you have first to be a naturalist and feel the ground under you making a whole circle. It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members. A club, moreover, or a nation, has a most attractive offer to make: it offers the right to be exclusive. There are not many of us who are physically constituted to resist this strange delight, this nourishing privilege. It is at the bottom of all fraternities, societies, orders. It is at the bottom of most trouble. The planet holds out no such inducement. The planet is everybody's. All it offers is the grass, the sky, the water, the ineluctable dream of peace and fruition.
~ E. B. White ~
2016
When you consider that there are a thousand ways to express even the simplest idea, it is no wonder writers are under a great strain. Writers care greatly how a thing is said — it makes all the difference. So they are constantly faced with too many choices and must make too many decisions.
I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn't know where else to go.
~ E. B. White ~
2017
The duties of man consist in alternate action and meditation, mutually aiding and relieving each other; and both, directed with undeviating aim, to the progressive improvement of himself and his fellow creatures. Heaven has given him in charge, to promote the happiness and well-being of himself, his wife, his children, his kindred, his neighbors, his fellow citizens, his country, and his kind; and the great problem of legislation is, so to organize the civil government of a community, that this gradation of duties, may be made to harmonize in all its parts — that in the operation of human institutions upon social action, self-love and social may be made the same.
~ John Quincy Adams ~
2018
I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear.
~ E. B. White ~
2019
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E. B. White ~
2020
Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.
~ Harper Lee ~
in
~ To Kill a Mockingbird ~
  • proposed by Kalki, for 60th anniversary of work first published on 11 July 1960.
2021
Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as long as it is presented honestly, fearlessly, and clearly.
~ E. B. White ~
2022
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere.
~ E. B. White ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. ~ Harry S. Truman
2004
What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. ~ John F. Kennedy
2005
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. ~ misattributed to Bill Cosby, (born 12 July 1937)
2006
In the country of the blind the one eyed man is king. ~ Desiderius Erasmus (died 12 July 1536)
2007
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. ~ Henry David Thoreau (born 12 July 1817)
2008
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. ~ Henry David Thoreau
2009
The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow. ~ William Osler
2010
No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition. ~ William Osler
2011
I have to say, I think that we are in some kind of final examination as to whether human beings now, with this capability to acquire information and to communicate, whether we're really qualified to take on the responsibility we're designed to be entrusted with. And this is not a matter of an examination of the types of governments, nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with economic systems. It has to do with the individual. Does the individual have the courage to really go along with the truth? ~ Buckminster Fuller
2012
Dear reader, traditional human power structures and their reign of darkness are about to be rendered obsolete.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2013
We must progress to the stage of doing all the right things for all the right reasons instead of doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2014
Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment. … Humanity is in "final exam" as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2015
There is more recognition now that things are changing, but not because there is a political move to do it. It is simply a result of the information being there. Our survival won’t depend on political or economic systems. It’s going to depend on the courage of the individual to speak the truth, and to speak it lovingly and not destructively. It’s saying what you really know and feel is the truth, in all directions. Our greatest vulnerability lies in the amount of misinformation and misconditioning of humanity. I’ve found the educations systems are full of it. You have to examine each word and ask yourself, "Is that the right word for that?" — the integrity and the courage of the individual to speak his own truth and not to go along with the crowd, yet not making others seem ignorant. After a while, if enough human beings are doing it, then everybody will start going in the right direction.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2016
If you take all the machinery in the world and dump it in the ocean, within months more than half of all humanity will die and within another six months they’d almost all be gone; if you took all the politicians in the world, put them in a rocket, and sent them to the moon, everyone would get along fine.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2017
Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2018
The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear.
This Dark Ages prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built of misinformation.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2019
Acquire the art of detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness, but above all the grace of humility.
~ William Osler ~
2020
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2021
We're here to make space more accessible to all. We want to turn the next generation of dreamers into the astronauts of today and tomorrow. We've all us on this stage have had the most extraordinary experience, and we'd love it if a number of you can have it, too. … If you ever had a dream, now is the time to make it come true — and I'd like to end by saying welcome to the dawn of a new space age.
~ Richard Branson ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent spaceflight in his own spacecraft.
2022
There’s a built-in resistance to letting humanity be a success. Each one claims that their system is the best one for coping with inadequacy. We have to make them all obsolete. We need to find within technology that there is something we can do which is capable of taking care of everybody, and to demonstrate that this is so. That’s what geodesic domes are about and that’s what my whole life has been about.
~ Buckminster Fuller ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity. ~ G. K. Chesterton
2005
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 (responding to the subway bombings of 7 July 2005)
2006
To-morrow comes, true copy of to-day,
And empty shadow of what is to be;
Yet cheated Hope on future still depends,
And ends but only when our being ends.
~ John Clare ~ (born 13 July 1793)
2007
Changes in the structure of society are not brought about solely by massive engines of doctrine. The first flash of insight which persuades human beings to change their basic assumptions is usually contained in a few phrases. ~ Kenneth Clark
2008
People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater. ~ Kenneth Clark
2009
O how I feel, just as I pluck the flower
And stick it to my breast — words can't reveal;
But there are souls that in this lovely hour
Know all I mean, and feel whate'er I feel.
~ John Clare ~
2010
It is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. ~ Kenneth Clark
2011
Men willingly believe what they wish. ~ Julius Caesar
2012
Alea iacta est.
The die is cast.
~ Julius Caesar ~
2013
I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves.
~ Kenneth Clark ~
2014
Energy is eternal delight; and from the earliest times human beings have tried to imprison it in some durable hieroglyphic. It is perhaps the first of all the subjects of art.
~ Kenneth Clark ~
2015
"What is too silly to be said may be sung" — well, yes; but what is too subtle to be said, or too deeply felt, or too revealing or too mysterious — these things can also be sung and can only be sung.
~ Kenneth Clark ~
2016
There is (gentle reader) nothing (the works of God only set apart) which so much beautifies and adorns the soul and mind of man as does knowledge of the good arts and sciences. Many arts there are which beautify the mind of man; but of all none do more garnish and beautify it than those arts which are called mathematical, unto the knowledge of which no man can attain, without perfect knowledge and instruction of the principles, grounds, and Elements of Geometry.
~ John Dee ~
2017
It is by the straight line and the circle that the first and most simple example and representation of all things may be demonstrated, whether such things be either non-existent or merely hidden under Nature's veils.
~ John Dee ~
2018
In time of war all countries behave equally badly, because the power of action is handed over to stupid and obstinate men.
~ Kenneth Clark ~
2019
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.
~ John Clare ~
2020
The ivyed oaks dark shadow falls
Oft picking up with wondering gaze
Some little thing of other days
Saved from the wreck of time.
~ John Clare ~
2021
The eye instinctively looks for analogies and amplifies them, so that a face imagined in the pattern of a wallpaper may become more vivid than a photograph.
~ Kenneth Clark ~
2022
At the very outset of our hearings, we described several elements of President Trump's multipart plan to overturn the 2020 election. Our hearings have now covered all but one of those elements, an organized campaign to persuade millions of Americans of a falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen by widespread fraud; a corrupt effort to pressure Vice President Pence to refuse to count electoral votes; an effort to corrupt the US Department of Justice; efforts to pressure state election officials and legislators to change state election results; a scheme to create and submit fake electoral slates from multiple states. And today, you saw how President Trump summoned a mob to Washington for January 6th, and then knowing that that mob was armed, directed that mob to the United States Capitol. Every one of these elements of the planning for January 6th is an independently serious matter. They were all ultimately focused on overturning the election, and they all have one other thing in common.
Donald Trump participated in each, substantially and personally. He oversaw or directed the activity of those involved.
~ Liz Cheney ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it? ~ Albert Einstein
2004
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~
2005
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 (born 14 July 1918)
2006
Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral. ~ Ingmar Bergman
2007
Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking my freedom highway
Nobody living can make me turn back
This land is made for you and me.
~ Woody Guthrie ~ (born 14 July 1912)
2008
The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine … don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as there is a human to race. The human race is a pretty old place. ~ Woody Guthrie
2009
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island,
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.
~ Woody Guthrie ~
2010
Freedom is not an exchange — it is freedom. ~ André Malraux
2011
I have been an anarchist all my life. I hope I have remained one. I should consider it very sad indeed had I to turn to a General and rule men with a military rod. They have come to me voluntarily, they are ready to stake their lives in our antifascist fight. I believe, as I always have, in freedom. The freedom which rests on the sense of responsibility. I consider discipline indispensable, but it must be inner discipline, motivated by a common purpose and a strong feeling of comradeship. ~ Buenaventura Durruti
2012
I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.
~ Woody Guthrie ~
2013
No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.
~ Ingmar Bergman ~
2014
Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God... The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility.
~ Ingmar Bergman ~
2015

Ever'body might be just one big soul,
Well it looks that a-way to me.
Everywhere that you look, in the day or night,
That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma,
That's where I'm a-gonna be.

Wherever little children are hungry and cry,
Wherever people ain't free.
Wherever men are fightin' for their rights,
That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma.
That's where I'm a-gonna be.

~ Woody Guthrie ~
2016
Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew.
~ Woody Guthrie ~
2017

Arise, children of the Fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody banner is raised …
Do you hear, in the countryside,
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They're coming right into your arms
To slaughter your sons, your companions!!

To arms, citizens,
Form your battalions,
Let's march, let's march!

~ Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle ~
2018
No matter how bad the wicked world has hurt you, in the long run, there is something gained, and it is all for the best … The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine, and any song that says, the pleasures I have seen in all of my trouble, are the things I never can get — don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as there is a human to race.
The human race is a pretty old place.
~ Woody Guthrie ~
2019
I'm gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised
People all over this world are getting organized
You're bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose.
~ Woody Guthrie ~
2020
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. … I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood.
I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.
~ Woody Guthrie ~
2021
The people are building a peaceful world, and when the job is done
That'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done.
~ Woody Guthrie ~
2022
What the world thought made little difference. Rembrandt had to paint. Whether he painted well or badly didn’t matter; painting was the stuff that held him together as a man. The chief value of art, Vincent, lies in the expression it gives to the artist. Rembrandt fulfilled what he knew to be his life purpose; that justified him. Even if his work had been worthless, he would have been a thousand times more successful than if he had put down his desire and become the richest merchant in Amsterdam.
~ Irving Stone ~
2023
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2003
Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so. ~ Bertrand Russell
2004
Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought. ~ Walt Kelly
2005
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 (born 15 July 1951)
2006
Patriotism is voluntary. It is a feeling of loyalty and allegiance that is the result of knowledge and belief. A patriot shows their patriotism through their actions, by their choice... No law will make a citizen a patriot. ~ Jesse Ventura
2007
Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality. ~ Iris Murdoch (born 15 July 1919)
2008
Try to put well in practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know. ~ Rembrandt (born 15 July 1606)
2009
Choose only one master — Nature. ~ Rembrandt
2010
There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. ~ Walter Benjamin
2011
It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. ~ J. K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (opening day of final film in the Harry Potter series 15 July 2011)
2012
There's a great need in our government right now for honesty. I speak my mind. You might not always like what you hear, but you're gonna hear it anyway. I call it like I see it; I tell the truth. And if I don't know something, I'll say so. Then I'll try to find the answer.
~ Jesse Ventura ~
2013
This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2014
Only a thoughtless observer can deny that correspondences come into play between the world of modern technology and the archaic symbol-world of mythology.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2015
In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist. Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2016
In the fields with which we are concerned knowledge exists only in lightning flashes. The text is the thunder rolling long afterwards.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2017
We know that the Jews were prohibited from investigating the future. The Torah and the prayers instruct them in remembrance, however. This stripped the future of its magic, to which all those succumb who turn to the soothsayers for enlightenment. This did not imply, however, that for the Jews the future turned into homogeneous empty time. For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2018
To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize "how it really was." It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger. For historical materialism it is a question of holding fast to a picture of the past, just as if it had unexpectedly thrust itself, in a moment of danger, on the historical subject. The danger threatens the stock of tradition as much as its recipients. For both it is one and the same: handing itself over as the tool of the ruling classes. In every epoch, the attempt must be made to deliver tradition anew from the conformism which is on the point of overwhelming it. For the Messiah arrives not merely as the Redeemer; he also arrives as the vanquisher of the Anti-christ. The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this: that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2019
Every expression of human mental life can be understood as a kind of language, and this understanding, in the manner of a true method, everywhere raises new questions.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2020
In what time does man live? The thinkers have always known that he does not live in any time at all. The immortality of thoughts and deeds banishes him to a timeless realm at whose heart an inscrutable death lies in wait. ... Devoured by the countless demands of the moment, time slipped away from him; the medium in which the pure melody of his youth would swell was destroyed. The fulfilled tranquility in which his late maturity would ripen was stolen from him. It was purloined by everyday reality, which, with its events, chance occurrences, and obligations, disrupted the myriad opportunities of youthful time, immortal time. ... From day to day, second to second, the self preserves itself, clinging to that instrument: time, the instrument that it was supposed to play.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2021
All purposeful manifestations of life, including their very purposiveness, in the final analysis have their end not in life but in the expression of its nature, in the representation of its significance.
~ Walter Benjamin ~
2022
A painting is finished when the artist says it is finished.
~ Rembrandt ~
2023
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2003
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. ~ Oscar Wilde
2004
When we wish to correct with advantage and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken and that he only failed to see all sides. ~ Blaise Pascal
2005
By the declining day, man is 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, Surah 103.
2006
If you build it, he will come. ~ "The Voice" in Field of Dreams (Shoeless Joe Jackson born 16 July 1888)
2007
You'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry. ~ J. D. Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye
  • proposed by Kalki (date of first publication of The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
2008
Ignorance perpetuates itself just as knowledge does. Men write false documents, they preach false doctrine, and those beliefs survive to inspire wickedness in later generations. … Conversely, some men write and teach about the truth, only to be declared heretic by the wicked. In such cases evil has the advantage, for it will do anything to suppress truth, but the good man limits what he will do to suppress falsehood.
One might almost make a rule of it: "Whoever declares another heretic is himself a devil. Whoever places a relic or artifact above justice, kindness, mercy, or truth is himself a devil and the thing elevated is a work of evil magic." ~ Sheri S. Tepper
2009
I have always lived in a world in which I'm just a spot in history. My life is not the important point. I'm just part of the continuum, and that continuum, to me, is a marvelous thing. The history of life, and the history of the planet, should go on and on and on and on. I cannot conceive of anything in the universe that has more meaning than that. ~ Sheri S. Tepper
2010
Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality. ~ Sheri S. Tepper
2011
What I mean is, lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most. I mean you can't help it sometimes. What I think is, you're supposed to leave somebody alone if he's at least being interesting and he's getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice. ~ J. D. Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye (60th anniversary of publication date in 1951)
2012
The sooner we can separate salvageable skeptics from self-righteous absolutists, the sooner we can move along.
~ Sheri S. Tepper ~
2013
To my mind, the expression of divinity is in variety, and the more variable the creation, the more variable the creatures that surround us, botanical and zoological, the more chance we have to learn and to see into life itself, nature itself. … we need variety. We came from that, we were born from that, it's our world, the world in which we became what we have become.
~ Sheri S. Tepper ~
2014
Creation has the truth written all over it — the age of the universe, the history of the world — but nine-tenths of mankind either don't know it or think it's a sham, because it isn't what their book or their prophet says, and it isn't cozy or manipulable enough.
~ Sheri S. Tepper ~
2015
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita... "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
~ Robert Oppenheimer ~
2016
I am impressed by the great limitations of the human mind. How quick are we to learn, that is, to imitate what others have done or thought before. And how slow to understand, that is, to see the deeper connections. Slowest of all, however, are we in inventing new connections or even in applying old ideas in a new field.
~ Frits Zernike ~
2017
I'm not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about. I mean she's only a little child and all. But she was listening, at least. If somebody at least listens, it's not too bad.
~ J. D. Salinger ~
in
~ The Catcher in the Rye ~
2018
Not many years before the Happening, one of your country's largest religious bodies officially declared that their book was holier than their God, thus simultaneously and corporately breaking several commandments of their own religion, particularly the first one. Of course they liked the book better! It was full of magic and contradictions that they could quote to reinforce their bigoted and hateful opinions, as I well know, for I chose many parts of it from among the scrolls and epistles that were lying around in caves here and there. They're correct that a god picked out the material; they just have the wrong god doing it.
~ Sheri S. Tepper ~
2019
11 … 10 ... 9 … ignition sequence start … 6 … 5 … 4 … 3… 2 … 1 … 0. All engine running. Liftoff! We have a liftoff — 32 minutes past the hour — lift off on Apollo 11. Tower cleared.
~ Jack King ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch.
2020
I'll be all right. I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?
~ J. D. Salinger ~
in
~ The Catcher in the Rye ~
2021
What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.
~ J. D. Salinger ~
in
~ The Catcher in the Rye ~
  • proposed by Kalki, for the 70th anniversary of its publication.
2022
The song the carrousel was playing was "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." It was playing it very jazzy and funny. All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she'd fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them.
~ J. D. Salinger ~
in
~ The Catcher in the Rye ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
All animals are equal — but some animals are more equal than others. ~ Animal Farm by George Orwell
2004
Of all the creatures that creep, swim or fly,
Peopling the earth, waters and the sky,
From Rome to Iceland, Paris to Japan,
I really think, the greatest fool is man.
~ Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux ~
2005
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 (born 17 July 1971)
2006
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul;
The mind's the standard of the man.
~ Isaac Watts ~ (born 17 July 1674)
2007
Maintain a constant watch at all times against a dogmatical spirit: fix not your assent to any proposition in a firm and unalterable manner, till you have some firm and unalterable ground for it, and till you have arrived at some clear and sure evidence. ~ Isaac Watts
2008
Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil;
In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish;
For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth;
Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use.
~ Martin Farquhar Tupper ~
2009
They told us not to wish in the first place, not to aspire, not to try; to be quiet, to play nice, to shoot low and aspire not at all. They are always wrong. Follow your dreams. Make your wishes. Create the future. And above all, believe in yourself. ~ J. Michael Straczynski
2010
God, from a beautiful necessity, is Love in all he doeth,
Love, a brilliant fire, to gladden or consume:
The wicked work their woe by looking upon love, and hating it:
The righteous find their joys in yearning on its loveliness for ever.
~ Martin Farquhar Tupper ~
2011
Never give up! it is wiser and better
Always to hope, than once to despair.
~ Martin Farquhar Tupper ~
2012
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
~ Martin Farquhar Tupper ~
2013
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
~ Isaac Watts ~
2014
We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We're told every day, "You can't change the world." But the world is changing every day. Only question is...who's doing it? You or somebody else?
~ J. Michael Straczynski ~
2015
Blessed is He Who made constellations in the skies, and placed therein a Lamp and a Moon giving light;
And it is He Who made the Night and the Day to follow each other: for such as have the will to celebrate His praises or to show their gratitude.
And the servants of (Allah) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, "Peace!"
~ The Qur'an ~
2016
The real damage from terrorist attacks doesn't come from the explosion. The real damage is done after the explosion, by the victims, who repeatedly and determinedly attack themselves, giving over reason in favor of terror. Every London cop who stops someone from taking a picture of a public building, every TSA agent who takes away your kid's toothpaste, every NSA spook who wiretaps your email, does the terrorist's job for him. Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy.
~ Cory Doctorow ~
2017
Of all the people who failed to buy one of my books today, the vast majority did so because they never heard of them, not because they got a free digital copy from the Internet.
~ Cory Doctorow ~
2018
Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. … President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the same script as the president made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press, and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the world. … No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant. Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are — a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. American presidents must be the champions of that cause if it is to succeed. Americans are waiting and hoping for President Trump to embrace that sacred responsibility. One can only hope they are not waiting totally in vain.
~ John McCain ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to a major historical events of secrecies and revelations which occurred on this day of this year, with McCaine's official statement one of many private and public responses to them.
2019
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
~ Isaac Watts ~
2020
"Let byegones be byegones,”—they foolishly say,
And bid me be wise and forget them;
But old recollections are active to-day,
And I can do nought but regret them;
Though the present be pleasant, all joyous and gay,
And promising well for the morrow,
I love to look back on the years past away,
Embalming my byegones in sorrow.
~ Martin Farquhar Tupper ~
2021
First-time novelists have a tough row to hoe. Our publishers don't have a lot of promotional budget to throw at unknown factors like us. Mostly, we rise and fall based on word-of-mouth.
~ Cory Doctorow ~
2022
We have an obligation to one another, responsibilities and trusts. That does not mean we must be pigeons, that we must be exploited. But it does mean that we should look out for one another when and as much as we can; and that we have a personal responsibility for our behavior; and that our behavior has consequences of a very real and profound nature. We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We're told every day, "You can't change the world." But the world is changing every day. Only question is … who's doing it? You or somebody else?
~ J. Michael Straczynski ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ~ Macbeth by William Shakespeare
2004
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. ~ Charles H. Spurgeon
2005
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~ Nelson Mandela (born 18 July 1918)
  • proposed by Aphaia
  • Very similar statements are attributed to others, but this particular form seems to be sourced to his autobiography.
2006
To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained — who can say this is not greatness? ~ William Makepeace Thackeray (born 18 July 1811)
2007
The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray
2008
When I die, my money's not gonna come with me. My movies will live on for people to judge what I was as a person. I just want to stay curious. - Interview for London's Sunday Telegraph magazine, November 2007 ~ Heath Ledger (release date for his final major movie role as The Joker in The Dark Knight) (FYI, Ledger unexpectedly died earlier this year and this is his last film)
2009
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray
2010
A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning. ~ Nelson Mandela
2011
If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. ~ Nelson Mandela
2012
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
2013
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for. But, my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
2014
The law changes and I don't. How I stand vis-à-vis the law at any given moment depends on the law. The law can change from state to state, from nation to nation, from city to city. I guess I have to go by a higher law. How's that? Yeah, I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma.
~ Hunter S. Thompson ~
2015
No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
2016
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
2017
When I first made Night of the Living Dead, it got analyzed and overanalyzed way out of proportion. The zombies were written about as if they represented Nixon’s Silent Majority or whatever. But I never thought about it that way. My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I’m pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.
~ George A. Romero ~
  • proposed by Kalki in regard to his recent death.
2018
The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
2019
Fortune, good or ill, as I take it, does not change men and women. It but develops their character. As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write, so the heart is a secret even to him (or her) who has it in his own breast. Who hath not found himself surprised into revenge, or action, or passion, for good or evil, whereof the seeds lay within him, latent and unsuspected, until the occasion called them forth?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray ~
2020
I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles — a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other — that kept me going.
~ Hunter S. Thompson ~
2021
Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.
~ Hunter S. Thompson ~
2022
Democracy is based on the majority principle. This is especially true in a country such as ours where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires that the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.
In the political order we have established there will regular, open and free elections, at all levels of government — central, provincial and municipal. There shall also be a social order which respects completely the culture, language and religious rights of all sections of our society and the fundamental rights of the individual.
The task at hand on will not be easy. But you have mandated us to change South Africa from a country in which the majority lived with little hope, to one in which they can live and work with dignity, with a sense of self-esteem and confidence in the future.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
2005
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
2006
Truth is never ugly when one can find in it what one needs. ~ Edgar Degas (born 19 July 1834)
2007
The museums are here to teach the history of art and something more as well, for, if they stimulate in the weak a desire to imitate, they furnish the strong with the means of their emancipation. ~ Edgar Degas
2008
Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty. ~ Edgar Degas
2009
Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away; they just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is... ~ Walter Cronkite (recent death)
2010
I should like to be famous and unknown. ~ Edgar Degas
2011
It is very good to copy what one sees; it is much better to draw what you can't see any more but is in your memory. It is a transformation in which imagination and memory work together. You only reproduce what struck you, that is to say the necessary. ~ Edgar Degas
2012
We didn't start the fire —
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire —
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
~ Billy Joel ~
2013
You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.
~ Edgar Degas ~
2014
A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.
~ Edgar Degas ~
2015
Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley.
But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us.
~ A. J. Cronin ~
2016
You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.
~ Edgar Degas ~
2017
It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious — to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality — he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.
~ Edgar Degas ~
2018
Hell is that state where one has ceased to hope.
~ A. J. Cronin ~
2019
Buddy, you're a young man, hard man
Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday
You got blood on your face, you big disgrace
Waving your banner all over the place
We will, we will rock you, sing it!
We will, we will rock you, yeah.
~ Brian May ~
2020
Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.
~ John Lewis ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard of his recent death.
2021
When I'm gone, people will no doubt remember me for Queen, but I would much rather be remembered for attempting to change the way we treat our fellow creatures.
~ Brian May ~
2022

There's no chance for us
It's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment
Set aside for us.

Who wants to live forever?
Who wants to live forever?
Who dares to love forever
Oh, when love must die?

~ Brian May ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race. ~ Education and the Social Order by Bertrand Russell
2004
We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility. ~ Rabindranath Tagore
2005
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.
2006
You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things — to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated. ~ Edmund Hillary (born 20 July 1919)
2007
People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things. ~ Edmund Hillary (this attribution may be erroneous)
2008
Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure. ~ Petrarch
2009
Houston: Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. ~ Neil Armstrong (first words of a human on the moon)
2010
Hitherto your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal! ~ Petrarch
2011
Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest. ~ Petrarch
2012
Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.
~ Petrarch ~
2013
To be able to say how much you love is to love but little.
~ Petrarch ~
2014
Five enemies of peace inhabit with us — avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
~ Petrarch ~
2015
Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live. … There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away — sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come.
~ Petrarch ~
2016
Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.
~ Edmund Hillary ~
2017
I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.
~ Alexander the Great ~
2018
Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue?
~ Alexander the Great ~
2019
HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969, A.D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.
~ NASA ~
2020
Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things. On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, "I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent." And I said, "Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something." And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did.
~ Neil Gaiman ~
2021
The people we lost in Aurora loved, and were loved. They were mothers and fathers; husbands and wives; sisters and brothers; sons and daughters; friends and neighbors. They had hopes for the future and dreams that were not yet fulfilled. And if there's anything to take away from this tragedy, it's a reminder that life is fragile. Our time here is limited and it is precious. And what matters in the end are not the small and trivial things which often consume our lives. It's how we choose to treat one another, and love one another. It's what we do on a daily basis to give our lives meaning and to give our lives purpose. That's what matters. That's why we're here.
~ Barack Obama ~
2022
I cannot seek paths so harsh or so savage that Love does not always come along discoursing with me and I with him.
~ Petrarch ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
The barge she sat in, like a burnishd throne, burnd on the water; the poop was beaten gold, purple the sails, and so perfumed, that the winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver, which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made the water which they beat to follow faster, as amorous of their strokes. For her own person, it beggard all description ~ "Enobarbus" in Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
2004
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. ~ Elbert Hubbard
2005
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
2006
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. ~ Ernest Hemingway (born 21 July 1899)
2007
If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. ~ J. K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (a quote from the first "Harry Potter" book on the date of release of the 7th and last of the series.)
2008
No one thing is true. It's all true. ~ Ernest Hemingway
2009

Now I've been happy lately
Thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be
Something good has begun.

Oh, I've been smiling lately
Dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be
Someday it's going to come.
~ Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) ~

2010
Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this year. It's been that way so many times. All of war is that way. ~ Ernest Hemingway
2011
Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. ~ Ernest Hemingway
2012
You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.
~ Robin Williams ~
2013
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.
~ J. K. Rowling ~
in
~ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ~
2014
Complexity is looking at interacting elements and asking how they form patterns and how the patterns unfold. It’s important to point out that the patterns may never be finished. They’re open-ended. In standard science this hit some things that most scientists have a negative reaction to. Science doesn’t like perpetual novelty.
~ W. Brian Arthur ~
2015
I don't think that God sent us prophets and books to fight about these books and these prophets. But they were telling us, actually, how to live together. If we ignore those teachings — whichever faith … you profess, then I think we'll be finding ourselves in an even deeper mess.
~ Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) ~
2016
There is a real, living unity in our time, as in any other, but it lies submerged under a superficial hubbub of sensation.
~ Marshall McLuhan ~
2017
"Peace Train" is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions. There is a powerful need for people to feel that gust of hope rise up again. As a member of humanity and as a Muslim, this is my contribution to the call for a peaceful solution.
~ Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) ~
2018
It's the people and the cause that matter and right now there's an important need, which is bridge-building. I wanted to support the cause of humanity, because that's what I always sang about.
Music can be healing, and with my history and my knowledge of both sides of what looks like a gigantic divide in the world, I feel I can point a way forward to our common humanity again. It's a big step for me but it's a natural step. I don't feel at all irked by the responsibility — I feel inspired.
~ Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) ~
2019
Electro-magnetic discoveries have recreated the simultaneous "field" in all human affairs so that the human family now exists under conditions of a "global village." We live in a single constricted space resonant with tribal drums. … The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.
~ Marshall McLuhan ~
2020
We believe that the civilised world is a multicultural, multi-religious world. That is the type of message we want to get across. … I think there are many who are Muslims and non-Muslims, who are not warmongers but peace makers and want this world to be a better place.
We believed the unison of the voices of so many people standing together against international terrorism is something to be valued and something to be built upon.
~ Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) ~
2021
When it comes to space, I see it as my job to build infrastructure the hard way — I'm using my resources to put in place heavy-lifting infrastructure so the next generation of people can have a dynamic, entrepreneurial explosion into space. … I want thousands of entrepreneurs doing amazing things in space, and to do that we need to dramatically lower the cost of access to space.
~ Jeff Bezos ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard to the recent successful crewing of the Blue Origin rocket into space.


2022
All words, in every language, are metaphors.
~ Marshall McLuhan ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. In the case of the sailor, this is called a tide; in the case of the guilty, it is called remorse. ~ Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
2004
What a folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal. ~ John Howe
2005
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 New Colossus" (born 22 July 1849)
2006
We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.
Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth.
Our children know and suffer the armed men.
~ Stephen Vincent Benét ~ (born 22 July 1898)
2007
Life is not lost by dying! Life is lost
Minute by minute, day by dragging day,
In all the thousand, small, uncaring ways,
The smooth appeasing compromises of time,
Which are King Herod and King Herod's men,
Always and always. Life can be
Lost without vision but not lost by death,
Lost by not caring, willing, going on
Beyond the ragged edge of fortitude
To something more — something no man has ever seen.
~ Stephen Vincent Benét ~
2008
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.
~ Emma Lazarus ~
2009
There was sadness in being a man, but it was a proud thing too. And he showed what the pride of it was till you couldn't help feeling it. Yes, even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it. And he wasn't pleading for any one person any more, though his voice rang like an organ. He was telling the story and the failures and the endless journey of mankind. They got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey. And no demon that was ever foaled could know the inwardness of it — it took a man to do that. … His voice could search the heart, and that was his gift and his strength. And to one, his voice was like the forest and its secrecy, and to another like the sea and the storms of the sea; and one heard the cry of his lost nation in it, and another saw a little harmless scene he hadn't remembered for years. But each saw something. And when Dan'l Webster finished he didn't know whether or not he'd saved Jabez Stone. But he knew he'd done a miracle. For the glitter was gone from the eyes of the judge and jury, and, for the moment, they were men again, and knew they were men. ~ Stephen Vincent Benét
2010

There was no pain when I awoke,
No pain at all. Rest, like a goad,
Spurred my eyes open — and light broke
Upon them like a million swords:
And she was there. There are no words.

Heaven is for a moment's span.
And ever.
~ Stephen Vincent Benét ~

2011
Do not disturb my circles! ~ Archimedes
2012
It is better the truth should come little by little. I have learned that, being a priest. Perhaps, in the old days, they ate knowledge too fast.
Nevertheless, we make a beginning. It is not for the metal alone we go to the Dead Places now — there are the books and the writings. They are hard to learn. And the magic tools are broken — but we can look at them and wonder. At least, we make a beginning. And, when I am chief priest we shall go beyond the great river. We shall go to the Place of the Gods — the place newyork — not one man but a company. We shall look for the images of the gods and find the god ASHING and the others — the gods Lincoln and Biltmore and Moses. But they were men who built the city, not gods or demons. They were men. I remember the dead man's face. They were men who were here before us. We must build again.
~ Stephen Vincent Benét ~
2013
He was talking about the things that make a country a country, and a man a man. And he began with the simple things that everybody's known and felt — the freshness of a fine morning when you're young, and the taste of food when you're hungry, and the new day that's every day when you're a child. He took them up and he turned them in his hands. They were good things for any man. But without freedom, they sickened.
~ Stephen Vincent Benét ~
2014
I've lived most of my entire adult life outside the law, and never have I compromised with authority. But neither have I gone out and picked fights with authority. That's stupid. They're waiting for that; they invite it; it helps keep them powerful. Authority is to be ridiculed, outwitted and avoided. And it's fairly easy to do all three. If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid — but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself.
~ Tom Robbins ~
2015
He brings man's freedom in his hands,
Not as a coin that may be spent or lost
But as a living fire within the heart,
Never quite quenched — because he brings to all,
The thought, the wish, the dream of brotherhood,
Never and never to be wholly lost,
The water and the bread of the oppressed,
The stay and succor of the resolute,
The harness of the valiant and the brave,
The new word that has changed the shaken world.
And, though he die, his word shall grow like wheat
And every time a child is born,
In pain and love and freedom hardly won,
Born and gone forth to help and aid mankind,
There will be women with a right to say
"Gloria, gloria in excelsis deo!
A child is born!"
~ Stephen Vincent Benét ~
2016
The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love.
~ Tom Robbins ~
2017
When we're incomplete, we're always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on — series polygamy — until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimension to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.
~ Tom Robbins ~
2018
It is so amusing the way that mortals misunderstand the shape, or shapes, of time. … In the realms of the ultimate, each person must figure out things for themselves. … Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received.
~ Tom Robbins ~
2019
The spirit of man has awakened and the soul of man has gone forth. Grant us the wisdom and the vision to comprehend the greatness of man's spirit, that suffers and endures so hugely for a goal beyond his own brief span. Grant us honor for our dead who died in the faith, honor for our living who work and strive for the faith, redemption and security for all captive lands and peoples. Grant us patience with the deluded and pity for the betrayed. And grant us the skill and valor that shall cleanse the world of oppression and the old base doctrine that the strong must eat the weak because they are strong.
Yet most of all grant us brotherhood, not only for this day but for all our years — a brotherhood not of words but of acts and deeds. We are all of us children of earth — grant us that simple knowledge. If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed. If they hunger, we hunger. If their freedom is taken away, our freedom is not secure. Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace — that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best, not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march toward the clean world our hands can make. Amen.
~ Stephen Vincent Benét ~
2020
Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice.
~ Tom Robbins ~
2021
Our earth is but a small star in the great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color or theory. Grant us that courage and foreseeing to begin this task today that our children and our children's children may be proud of the name of man.
~ Stephen Vincent Benét ~
2022
Since the beginning of the war, Russia has launched more than 3,000 different cruise missiles over Ukraine, but to destroy someone's family, you don't even need a missile, a small fragment is enough. … I appeal to you on behalf of all the dead. On behalf of people who have lost arms and legs. And on behalf of people who are still alive and well. On behalf of those who are fighting and those who are waiting in the rear for the return of their relatives from the front. I'm asking for something now that I never wanted to ask for. I am asking you for weapons! Weapons not for waging war on someone else's land, but to protect our home and the right to wake up in it alive. I am asking you for anti-aircraft defense — so that rockets do not kill children in their strollers. So that they do not destroy children's rooms and entire families.
~ Olena Zelenska ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, 'Verify your quotations.' ~ Winston Churchill
2004
I'll tell you this — No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn. ~ Jim Morrison
2005
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 (born 23 July 1888)
2006
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. ~ Raymond Chandler (born 23 July 1888)
2007
Our system presumes that there are certain principles that are more important than the temper of the times. ~ Anthony Kennedy (born 23 July 1936)
2008
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph. ~ Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (born 23 July 1892)
2009
The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act — and if necessary, to suffer and die — for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied. These lessons must be learned anew by each succeeding generation, and that generation is fortunate indeed which learns from other than its own bitter experience. ~ Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia
2010
There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous. ~ Raymond Chandler
  • last sentence proposed by Ningauble; extension suggested and used by Kalki
2011
The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech. ~ Anthony Kennedy
2012
A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.
~ Raymond Chandler ~
2013
The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment.
~ Raymond Chandler ~
2014
Leadership does not mean domination. The world is always well supplied with people who wish to rule and dominate others.
The true leader is a different sort; he seeks effective activity which has a truly beneficient purpose. He inspires others to follow in his wake, and holding aloft the torch of wisdom, leads the way for society to realize its genuinely great aspirations.
~ Haile Selassie ~
2015
Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality: there are no dull subjects, only dull minds. All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be argued, but its release has become a functional necessity. All men must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts. It is part of the process of life among thinking beings.
~ Raymond Chandler ~
2016
We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.
~ Anthony Kennedy ~
2017
The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.
~ Raymond Chandler ~
2018
The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of mind that can produce the artistic job of writing.
~ Raymond Chandler ~
2019
The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjugation of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security.
But these, too, as were the phrases of the Covenant, are only words; their value depends wholly on our will to observe and honour them and give them content and meaning. The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act — and if necessary, to suffer and die — for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied.
These lessons must be learned anew by each succeeding generation, and that generation is fortunate indeed which learns from other than its own bitter experience.
~ Haile Selassie ~
2020
There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.
~ Raymond Chandler ~
2021
I am a writer, and there comes a time when that which I write has to belong to me, has to be written alone and in silence, with no one looking over my shoulder, no one telling me a better way to write it. It doesn't have to be great writing, it doesn't even have to be terribly good. It just has to be mine.
~ Raymond Chandler ~
2022
Donald Trump wasn’t looking for the right answer legally or the right answer factually. He was looking for a way to remain in office. … In our hearing tonight, you saw an American president faced with a stark, unmistakable choice between right and wrong. There was no ambiguity, no nuance. Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office, to ignore the ongoing violence against law enforcement, to threaten our Constitutional order. There is no way to excuse that behavior. It was indefensible.
And every American must consider this: Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?
~ Liz Cheney ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. ~ Will Rogers
2004
Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, Lady, were no crime. ~ Andrew Marvell
2005
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 "Amazing Grace"
2006
There is one story and one story only.
Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,
Do not forget what flowers
The great boar trampled down in ivy time.
Her brow was creamy as the long ninth wave,
Her sea-blue eyes were wild.
But nothing promised that is not performed.
~ Robert Graves ~
2007
New beginnings and new shoots
Spring again from hidden roots
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
Love must ever yet return.
~ Robert Graves ~
2008
Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil. I am content to observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape from it, and with this I begin and end. ~ John Newton
2009
The art of victory is learned in defeat. ~ Simón Bolívar
2010
The three greatest fools of History have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote . . . and me! ~ Simón Bolívar
2011
God give us men. The time demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And dam his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking.
~ Josiah Gilbert Holland ~
2012
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
~ John Newton ~
2013
No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.
~ Amelia Earhart ~
2014
When a dream is born in you
With a sudden clamorous pain,
When you know the dream is true
And lovely, with no flaw nor stain,
O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch
You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.
~ Robert Graves ~
2015
The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.
~ Amelia Earhart ~
2016
Up with life. Stamp out all small and large indignities. Leave everyone alone to make it without pressure. Down with hurting. Lower the standard of living. Do without plastics. Smash the servo-mechanisms. Stop grabbing. Snuff the breeze and hug the kids. Love all love. Hate all hate.
~ John D. MacDonald ~
2017
Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. Integrity is not a search for the rewards of integrity. Maybe all you ever get for it is the largest kick in the ass the world can provide. It is not supposed to be a productive asset. Crime pays a lot better. I can bend my own rules way, way over, but there is a place where I finally stop bending them.
~ John D. MacDonald ~
2018
In many ways life is less random than we think. In your past and mine, there have been times when we have, on some lonely trail, constructed a device aimed into our future. Perhaps nothing ever comes along to trigger it. We live through the safe years. But, for some people, something moves on the half-forgotten path, and something arches out of the past and explodes in the here and now.
~ John D. MacDonald ~
2019
War was return of earth to ugly earth,
War was foundering of sublimities,
Extinction of each happy art and faith
By which the world had still kept head in air.
~ Robert Graves ~
2020
I think there is some kind of divine order in the universe. Every leaf on every tree in the world is unique. As far as we can see, there are other galaxies, all slowly spinning, numerous as the leaves in the forest. In an infinite number of planets, there has to be an infinite number with life forms on them. Maybe this planet is one of the discarded mistakes. Maybe it's one of the victories. We'll never know.
~ John D. MacDonald ~
2021
We're all children. We invent the adult facade and don it and try to keep the buttons and the medals polished. We're all trying to give such a good imitation of being an adult that the real adults in the world won't catch on. Each of us takes up the shticks that compose the adult image we seek. I'd gone the route of lazy, ironic bravado, of amiable, unaffiliated insouciance. Tinhorn knights of a stumbling Rocinante from Rent-A-Steed, maybe with one little area of the heart so pinched, so parched, I never dared let anything really lasting happen to me. Or dared admit the the flaw...
The adult you pretend to be convinces himself that the risk is worth the game, the game worth the risk. Tells himself the choice of life style could get him killed — on the Daytona track, in the bull ring, falling from the raw steel framework forty stories up, catching a rodeo hoof in the side of the head.
Adult pretenses are never a perfect fit for the child underneath, and when there is the presentiment of death, like a hard black light making panther eyes glow in the back of the cave, the cry is, "Mommy, mommy, mommy, it's so dark out there, so dark and so forever."
~ John D. MacDonald ~
2022

Be warm, enjoy the season, lift your head,
Exquisite in the pulse of tainted blood,
That shivering glory not to be despised.

Take your delight in momentariness,
Walk between dark and dark — a shining space
With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace.

~ Robert Graves ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. ~ Albert Einstein
2004
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern. ~ William Blake
2005
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 (died 25 July 1834)
2006
There seem to be magic days once in a while, with some rare quality of light that hold a body spellbound... Then comes the hard part: how to plan a picture so as to give to others what has happened to you. To render in paint an experience, to suggest the sense of light and color, air and space... ~ Maxfield Parrish (born 25 July 1870)
2007
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance. ~ Eric Hoffer (born 25 July 1902)
2008
Though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. ~ Eric Hoffer
2009
Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good. ~ Eric Hoffer
2010
The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. ~ Eric Hoffer
2011
It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations — past and present — are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hunger, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millennia. Thus, we are up against the paradox that the individual who is more complex, unpredictable, and mysterious than any communal entity is the one nearest to our understanding; so near that even the interval of millennia cannot weaken our feeling of kinship. If in some manner the voice of an individual reaches us from the remotest distance of time, it is a timeless voice speaking about ourselves. ~ Eric Hoffer
2012
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2013
Where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. One would rather see the world run by men who set their hearts on toys but are accessible to pity, than by men animated by lofty ideals whose dedication makes them ruthless. In the chemistry of man's soul, almost all noble attributes — courage, honor, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc. — can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2014
What counts most is holding on. The growth of a train of thought is not a direct forward flow. There is a succession of spurts separated by intervals of stagnation, frustration, and discouragement. If you hold on, there is bound to come a certain clarification. The unessential components drop off and a coherent, lucid whole begins to take shape.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2015
The autonomous individual, striving to realize himself and prove his worth, has created all that is great in literature, art, music, science and technology. The autonomous individual, also, when he can neither realize himself nor justify his existence by his own efforts, is a breeding call of frustration, and the seed of the convulsions which shake our world to its foundations.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2016
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2017
The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it acts upon. No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion — it is an evil government.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2018
People unfit for freedom — who cannot do much with it — are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a "have-not" type of self. If Hitler had had the talents and the temperament of a genuine artist, if Stalin had had the capacity to become a first-rate theoretician, if Napoleon had had the makings of a great poet or philosopher they would hardly have developed the all-consuming lust for absolute power.
Freedom gives us a chance to realize our human and individual uniqueness. Absolute power can also bestow uniqueness: to have absolute power is to have the power to reduce all the people around us to puppets, robots, toys, or animals, and be the only man in sight. Absolute power achieves uniqueness by dehumanizing others.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2019
If by politeness then is meant goodness, it is appreciated by me as I trust it always has been, but if it is to mean the string of ceremonies generally used for concealing ill nature, and which have been found necessary to the existence of every society whose members are wanting in self respect and morality, I detest it more than ever.
My prominent idea of a polite man is one who is nothing but polish. It is an unenviable reputation. If there was anything else in him the polish would never be noticed. He is a bad drawing finely worked up, and Gérôme says that every attempt at finish on a bad design serves only to make the work more contemptible.
~ Thomas Eakins ~
2020
The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2021
Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2022
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Science is the tool of the Western mind, and with it, more doors can be opened than with bare hands. It is part and parcel of our knowledge and obscures our insight only when it holds that the understanding given by it is the only kind there is. ~ Carl Jung (born 26 July 1875)
2005
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 (born 26 July 1875)
2006
Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature. ~ George Bernard Shaw (born 26 July 1856)
2007
To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves. ~ Aldous Huxley (born July 26, 1894)
2008
We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy. ~ Carl Jung
2009
I hear you say "Why?" Always "Why?" You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" ~ George Bernard Shaw
2010
We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions. ~ Carl Jung
2011
The philosopher is Nature's pilot. And there you have our difference: to be in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer. ~ George Bernard Shaw (date of birth)
2012
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
~ George Bernard Shaw ~
2013
I have always enjoyed dealing with a slightly surrealistic situation and presenting it in a realistic manner. I've always liked fairy tales and myths, magical stories. I think they are somehow closer to the sense of reality one feels today than the equally stylized "realistic" story in which a great deal of selectivity and omission has to occur in order to preserve its "realist" style.
~ Stanley Kubrick ~
2014
There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.
~ Stanley Kubrick ~
2015
This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.
~ Carl Jung ~
2016
The masses demand a fighting President, and that means you’ve got to offend somebody, because the way I see it, a strong offense is the best attack.
So what can you offend?
That’s an easy one. Offend the other candidates, because they’ll be too busy talking to hear you, and besides, they might not vote for you anyway.
~ Gracie Allen ~
2017
No language exists that cannot be misused … Every interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text.
~ Carl Jung ~
2018
The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
~ Stanley Kubrick ~
2019
Emotion is the chief source of all becoming-conscious. There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.
~ Carl Jung ~
2020
A platform is something a candidate stands for and the voters fall for. … I’m having my platform run up by a movie set designer, so it will be very impressive from the front, but not too permanent. After all, there’s no sense putting a lot of time and thought into something you’ll have no use for after you’re elected.
~ Gracie Allen ~
2021
The poet is, etymologically, the maker. Like all makers, he requires a stock of raw materials — in his case, experience. Now experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. It is a gift for dealing with the accidents of existence, not the accidents themselves. By a happy dispensation of nature, the poet generally possesses the gift of experience in conjunction with that of expression. What he says so well is therefore intrinsically of value.
~ Aldous Huxley ~
2022
It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.
~ Carl Jung ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. ~ Paul Wolfowitz
2004
When I was a kid my parents used to tell me: "Don't go near the cellar door, Emo!" One day when they were away, I went to the door and opened it... and I saw birds and trees... ~ Emo Philips
2005
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 (born 27 July 1870)
2006
In soft deluding lies let fools delight. A shadow marks our days, which end in Night. ~ Hilaire Belloc
2007
A heart, a heart that hurts, is a heart, a heart that works. ~ Juliana Hatfield (born 27 July 1967)
2008
It was my shame, and now it is my boast, That I have loved you rather more than most. ~ Hilaire Belloc
2009
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. ~ Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
2010
I've been sleeping through my life
Now I'm waking up
And I want to stand in the sunshine
I have never been ecstatic
Had a flower but it never bloomed
In the darkness of my wasted youth
It was hiding in the shadows
Learning to become invisible
Uncover me.

~ Juliana Hatfield ~

2011
I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. ~ Hilaire Belloc
2012
Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!
~ Hilaire Belloc ~
2013
The thing about dancers is they're a certain breed. You don't do it to become rich and famous, you don't do it to have a really long career or to be the star, you do it because you can't imagine your life not doing it.
~ Cat Deeley ~
2014

Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art. —

Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given,
For happy spirits to alight,
Betwixt the earth and heaven.

~ Thomas Campbell ~
2015

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.

~ John Donne ~
2016
In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this that he cannot make; that he can befog or destroy, but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilisation exactly that has been true.
We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid.
We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us: we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile.
~ Hilaire Belloc ~
2017
There was silence deep as death,
And the boldest held his breath,
For a time.
~ Thomas Campbell ~
2018
Of courtesy it is much less
Than courage of heart or holiness
Yet in my walks it seems to me
That the Grace of God is in courtesy.
~ Hilaire Belloc ~
2019
There's a hole in the sky
I stood and stared
I feel it inside what isn't there
The children are lost we can't find them anywhere
Hole in the sky
I'm crying still crying for you.
~ Juliana Hatfield ~
2020

I'm a goddess in your eyes, and I will never die.
I was born of people's needs, and what they don't wanna believe.
But I am a liar, that's the truth, go home and think it through.
That's the harm in mystery, all you know is what you see.

I got no idols.

~ Juliana Hatfield ~
2021

Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth deliver'd from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam:
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme!

~ Thomas Campbell ~
2022
What a life, you wear it like propriety
What a life, you do it like you really mean it
What a life, I watch it like a scary movie
What a life, what a life, what a life.
~ Juliana Hatfield ~


2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. ~ Oprah Winfrey
2005
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 (born 28 July 1902) in Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972)
2006
We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong. ~ Karl Popper
2007
We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure. ~ Karl Popper
2008
If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, "Tell the Truth." If I got three more words, I'd add, "All the time." ~ Randy Pausch
2009
We do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves. ~ Karl Popper
2010
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. ~ Karl Popper
2011

The World is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with the warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~ Gerard Manley Hopkins ~

2012
Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
~ Karl Popper ~
2013
One man can make a difference and every man should try.
~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis ~
2014
A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others — not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others. The emphasis here is on the idea of criticism or, to be more precise, critical discussion. The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.
~ Karl Popper ~
2015
I want to say this one thing, it's been almost an obsession with me, all I keep thinking of is this line from a musical comedy... and the song he loved most came at the very end of this record, the last side of Camelot, sad Camelot... "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot."
~ Jacqueline Kennedy ~
2016
The deep desire to inspire people, to take an active part in the life of the country … attracts our best people to political life … We should all do something to right the wrongs that we see and not just complain about them. We owe that to our country.
~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis ~
2017
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
~ Gerard Manley Hopkins ~
2018
Before we as individuals are even conscious of our existence we have been profoundly influenced for a considerable time (since before birth) by our relationship to other individuals who have complicated histories, and are members of a society which has an infinitely more complicated and longer history than they do (and are members of it at a particular time and place in that history); and by the time we are able to make conscious choices we are already making use of categories in a language which has reached a particular degree of development through the lives of countless generations of human beings before us. . . . We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.
~ Karl Popper ~
2019
If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favor of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted.
~ Karl Popper ~
2020
There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority … The fundamental mistake made by the philosophical theory of the ultimate sources of our knowledge is that it does not distinguish clearly enough between questions of origin and questions of validity.
~ Karl Popper ~
2021
A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda.
~ Karl Popper ~
2022
The deep desire to inspire people, to take an active part in the life of the country … attracts our best people to political life … We should all do something to right the wrongs that we see and not just complain about them. We owe that to our country.
~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. ~ Henry David Thoreau
2004
In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less, and the good or bad I say of myself I say of them. ~ Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass
2005
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
  • proposed by MosheZadka in honor of ENIAC, the world's first digital computer, being reactivated on 29 July 1947, after a memory upgrade that took the better part of a year
2006
No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville (born 29 July 1805)
2007
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason. ~ Dag Hammarskjöld (date of birth)
2008
The Congress hereby declares that it is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind. ~ "National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958" creating NASA (signed by President Dwight Eisenhower on the 29th of July 1958; 50th anniversary of NASA in 2008)
2009
For all that has been —
Thanks.
For all that shall be —
Yes.
~ Dag Hammarskjöld ~
2010

Now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free —
They would not listen
They did not know how,
Perhaps they'll listen now.

~ Don McLean ~
in
"Vincent (Starry Starry Night|)"
(date Vincent Van Gogh died of a gunshot wound to the chest.)

2011
Destiny is something not be to desired and not to be avoided. A mystery not contrary to reason, for it implies that the world, and the course of human history, have meaning. ~ Dag Hammarskjöld
2012
The isness of things is well worth studying; but it is their whyness that makes life worth living.
~ William Beebe ~
2013
A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility.
~ Dag Hammarskjöld ~
2014
Now, the redemption which we as yet await (continued Imlac), will be that of Kalki, who will come as a Silver Stallion: all evils and every sort of folly will perish at the coming of this Kalki: true righteousness will be restored, and the minds of men will be made as clear as crystal.
~ James Branch Cabell ~
2015
Is it not a pity, Guivric, that this Kalki will not come in our day, and that we shall never behold his complete glory? I cry a lament for that Kalki who will someday bring back to their appointed places high faith and very ardent loves and hatreds; and who will see to it that human passions are in never so poor a way to find expressions in adequate speech and action. Ohé, I cry a loud lament for Kalki! The little silver effigies which his postulants fashion and adore are well enough: but Kalki is a horse of another color.
~ James Branch Cabell ~
2016
Whether or not it was a coincidence, Jurgen met precisely the vampire of whom he had inveigled his father into thinking. She was the most seductively beautiful creature that it would be possible for Jurgen's father or any other man to imagine: and her clothes were orange-colored, for a reason sufficiently well known in Hell, and were embroidered everywhere with green fig–leaves.
"A good morning to you, madame," says Jurgen, "and whither are you going?"
"Why, to no place at all, good youth. For this is my vacation, granted yearly by the Law of Kalki —"
"And who is Kalki, madame?"
"Nobody as yet: but he will come as a stallion. Meanwhile his Law precedes him, so that I am spending my vacation peacefully in Hell, with none of my ordinary annoyances to bother me."
"And what, madame, can they be?"
"Why, you must understand that it is little rest a vampire gets on earth, with so many fine young fellows like yourself going about everywhere eager to be destroyed."
~ James Branch Cabell ~
2017
I have many names, and none of them matter. … Names are not important ... To speak is to name names, but to speak is not important. A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, "What is it like, this thing you have seen?" So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world. He tells them, "It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone." Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times.
~ Roger Zelazny ~
in
~ Lord of Light ~


2018
䷳
KEEPING STILL.
Keeping his back still
So that he no longer feels his body.
He goes into his courtyard
And does not see his people.
No blame.
True quiet means keeping still when the time has come to keep still, and going forward when the time has come to go forward. In this way rest and movement are in agreement with the demands of the time, and thus there is light in life
~ I Ching ~
2019
䷙
The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity
And many deeds of the past,
In order to strengthen his character thereby.
~ I Ching ~
2020
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
~ Don Marquis ~
2021
I think this is the greatest threat to our republic ever. Not the Depression, not World War II, not the Civil War. This is it … This moment of all these intersecting viruses, of novel coronaviruses and of racial injustice … 402-year-old-virus. And it’s an age-old human virus of lying and misinformation and paranoia and conspiracy. This is the pill that will kill us unless we do something.
~ Ken Burns ~
2022

Now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen —
They did not know how,
Perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight, on that starry starry night
You took your life as lovers often do,
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

~ Don McLean ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
  • On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. ~ Charles Babbage
2004
I just know that something good is going to happen. I don't know when — but just saying it could even make it happen. ~ Kate Bush (born 30 July 1958)
2005
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 ~ (born 30 July 1818)
2006
What am I singing?
A song of seeds
The food of love.
Eat the music.
~ Kate Bush ~
2007
Just being alive
It can really hurt.
These moments given
Are a gift from time.
Just let us try
To give these moments back
To those we love
To those who will survive.
~ Kate Bush ~
2008
I don't know you,
And you don't know me.
It is this that brings us together.
~ Kate Bush ~
2009

Moving stranger,
Does it really matter,
As long as you're not afraid to feel?

Touch me, hold me.
How my open arms ache!
Try to fall for me.

~ Kate Bush ~

2010

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou —THOU art Being and Breath,
And what THOU art may never be destroyed.
~ Emily Brontë ~

2011
I love the whirling of the dervishes.
I love the beauty of rare innocence.
You don't need no crystal ball,
Don't fall for a magic wand.
We humans got it all, we perform the miracles.
~ Kate Bush ~
2012
Nobody knows about my man.
They think he's lost on some horizon.
And suddenly I find myself
Listening to a man I've never known before,
Telling me about the sea,
All his love, 'til Eternity.
Ooh, he's here again,
The man with the child in his eyes.
~ Kate Bush ~
2013

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idle froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The stedfast rock of immortality.

~ Emily Brontë ~
2014

We're all alone on the stage tonight.
We've been told; we're not afraid of you.

We know all our lines so well, ah-ha,
We've said them so many times:
Time and time again,
Line and line again.

~ Kate Bush ~
2015

You were playing in the snow
You were banging on the doors
You climbed up on the roof
Roof of the world …

We found your footprints in the snow
We brushed them all away…

You're the wild man.

~ Kate Bush ~
2016
Soon it will be the phase of the moon
When people tune in.
Every girl knows about the punctual blues,
But who's to know the power behind our moves?
A day of coincidence with the radio
And a word that won't go away
We know what they're all going to say
"G" arrives, funny, had a feeling he was on his way
…
We raise our hats to the strange phenomena.
Soul-birds of a feather flock together.
~ Kate Bush ~
2017
We let the weirdness in.
~ Kate Bush ~
2018
The great thing about art on any level is that it can speak to all people if it’s achieved properly. When I’ve heard a piece of music or seen a painting that moves me, it gives me something. That’s such an incredibly special experience. I have intentions as a writer, but people — when they’re listening to a track — will take from it what they interpret. Sometimes people mishear my lyrics and think a song’s about something it isn’t. That doesn’t matter. If it speaks to them and they get something positive from it, it’s great.
~ Kate Bush ~
2019
Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot.
Rolling the ball, rolling the ball, rolling the ball to me.
They open doorways that I thought were shut for good.
They read me Gurdjieff and Jesu.
They build up my body, break me emotionally.
It's nearly killing me, but what a lovely feeling!
~ Kate Bush ~
2020
The civilised keep alive
The territorial war…
Erase the race that claim the place
And say we dig for ore,
Or dangle devils in a bottle
And push them from the pull of the Bush.
…
See the sun set in the hand of the man.
~ Kate Bush ~
2021
Well, I couldn't see what was to be
So I just stood there laughing
A picture of you, a picture of you in uniform
Standing with your head held high
Hot down to the floor but it couldn't be you
It couldn't be you, it's a picture of Hitler
~ Kate Bush ~
2022
It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.
And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
~ Kate Bush ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
History would be an excellent thing if only it were true. ~ Leo Tolstoy
2004
Blue Moon, now I'm no longer alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own. ~ Lorenz Hart (a Blue moon occurred on 31 July 2004)
2005
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, (born 31 July 1965)
2006
I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. ~ Milton Friedman (born 31 July 1912)
2007
In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you’re not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable. ~ Primo Levi
2008
The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism. ~ Primo Levi
2009
I beg the reader not to go in search of messages. It is a term that I detest because it distresses me greatly, for it forces on me clothes that are not mine, which in fact belong to a human type that I distrust; the prophet, the soothsayer, the seer. I am none of these; I'm a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual. ~ Primo Levi
2010
Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable. ~ Milton Friedman
2011
The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth. ~ J. K. Rowling
2012
In countries and epochs in which communication is impeded, soon all other liberties wither; discussion dies by inanition, ignorance of the opinion of others becomes rampant, imposed opinions triumph. … Intolerance is inclined to censor, and censorship promotes ignorance of the arguments of others and thus intolerance itself: a rigid, vicious circle that is hard to break.
~ Primo Levi ~
2013
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather "What can I and my compatriots do through government" to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp.
~ Milton Friedman ~
2014
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.
~ J. K. Rowling ~
2015
We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.
~ J. K. Rowling ~
2016
The wizards represent all that the true "muggle" most fears: They are plainly outcasts and comfortable with being so. Nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed misfit!
~ J. K. Rowling ~
2017
NEVER let your guard down!
You expect a battle to be fair! — A battle will never be fair!
~ "Antiope" ~
in
~ Wonder Woman (2017 film) ~
2018
A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.
~ Primo Levi ~
2019
Those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters; for without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it through our own apathy.
~ J. K. Rowling ~
2020
The bond between a man and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country; it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one's country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession.
~ Primo Levi ~
2021
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
~ Milton Friedman ~
2022
If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you'd find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.
I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I've outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they're most likely to be killed by sexual partners. … So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman — and, as I've said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones — then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.
~ J. K. Rowling ~
2023
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