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Wikiquote:Quote of the day/July 2010

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July 1
 

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg ~

 


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July 2
 

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 ~

 


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July 3
 

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

 


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July 4
 

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 ~

 


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July 5
 

Life is not theory. It is reality, with inherent duties to everything and everyone.

~ Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka ~

 


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July 6
 

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 ~

 


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July 7
 

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

 


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July 8
 

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 ~

 


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July 9
 

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 ~

 


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July 10
 

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 ~

 


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July 11
 

Life's meaning has always eluded me and I guess it always will. But I love it just the same.

~ E. B. White ~

 


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July 12
 

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 ~

 


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July 13
 

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 ~

 


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July 14
 

Freedom is not an exchange — it is freedom.

~ André Malraux ~

 


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July 15
 

There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.

~ Walter Benjamin ~

 


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July 16
 

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 ~

 


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July 17
 

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 ~

 


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July 18
 

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 ~

 


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July 19
 

I should like to be famous and unknown.

~ Edgar Degas ~

 


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July 20
 

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 ~

 


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July 21
 

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 ~

 


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July 22
 

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 ~

 


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July 23
 

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 ~

 


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July 24
 

The three greatest fools of history have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote . . . and me!

~ Simón Bolívar ~

 


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July 25
 

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 ~

 


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July 26
 

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 ~

 


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July 27
 

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 ~

  File:WithOzzy3.jpg


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July 28
 

Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

~ Karl Popper ~

 


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July 29
 

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|)"

 


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July 30


 

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 ~

 


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July 31
 

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 ~

 


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Today is Thursday, November 21, 2024; it is now 18:03 (UTC)