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April 8

From Wikiquote

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous. ~ Zhuang Zi
2005
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Gautama Buddha
  • selected by Kalki; 8 April is Hana Matsuri (Flower Festival), the fixed-date celebration of Buddha's Birthday in Japan.
2006
Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love. This is the eternal rule. ~ Gautama Buddha
2007
Blessed are the poor in spirit:
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn:
    for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek:
    for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:
    for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful:
    for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart:
    for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers:
    for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake:
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) ~ (for Easter Sunday 2007 in both the Gregorian calendar and Eastern Orthodox reckonings)
2008
Look, look, look to the rainbow
Follow it over the hill and stream
Look, look, look to the rainbow
Follow the fellow who follows a dream.

~ Yip Harburg ~ (born 8 April 1896)
2009
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

~ Yip Harburg ~
2010
You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done. ~ Kofi Annan (born 8 April 1938)
2011
Life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When o’er the nursing sod,
The shadows broke and soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.

~ Langdon Smith ~ (died 8 April 1908)
2012
I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes. ~ Jesus
2013
Life is short, short, brother!
Ain't it the truth?
And there is no other
Ain't it the truth?
You gotta rock that rainbow while you still got your youth!
Oh! Ain't it the solid truth?
~ Yip Harburg ~
2014
Lives of great men all remind us greatness takes no easy way.
All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today.
~ Yip Harburg ~
2015
If we only have love
We will never bow down
We'll be tall as the pines
Neither heroes nor clowns.
If we only have love
Then we'll only be men
And we'll drink from the Grail
To be born once again.
Then with nothing at all
But the little we are
We'll have conquered all time
All space, the sun, and the stars!
~ Jacques Brel ~
2016
One of these days when the air clears up
And the sun comes shining through
We'll all be drinking that free bubble up
And eating some rainbow stew.
~ Merle Haggard ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard of his recent death.
2017
If we only have love
We can reach those in pain
We can heal all our wounds
We can use our own names.
~ Jacques Brel ~
2018
Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts.
~ J. Michael Straczynski ~
in
~ Babylon 5 : Ceremonies of Light and Dark ~
2019
Each of us believes, quite unconsciously of course, that we alone pursue the truth, which the rest are incapable of seeking out and unworthy of attaining. This madness is so deep-rooted and so useful that it is impossible to realize what would become of each of us if it were someday to disappear.
~ Emil Cioran ~
2020
Once I built a railroad, I made it run,
made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?
~ Yip Harburg ~
2021
I am a rebel by birth. … I contest anything that is unjust, that causes suffering in humanity. My feelings about that are so strong, I don't think I could live with myself if I weren't honest.
~ Yip Harburg ~
2022
The United States continues to work methodically to collect, to preserve, to analyze evidence of atrocities and to make this information available to the appropriate bodies. We’re supporting a multinational team of experts that’s assisting a war crimes unit set up by Ukraine’s prosecutor general, with a view toward eventually pursuing criminal accountability. These efforts will also ensure that Russia cannot escape the verdict of history.
Just moments ago, as I was coming into this room, I learned that UN member states had come together once again to condemn Russia’s aggression and suspend it from the Human Rights Council. A country that’s perpetrating gross and systematic violations of human rights should not sit on a body whose job it is to protect those rights.
~ Antony Blinken ~
2023
Say, its only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me.
~ Yip Harburg ~
2024
Rank or add further suggestions…


Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:


  • We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better, and we see further — we will realize that humanity is indivisible. New threats make no distinction between races, nations or regions. A new insecurity has entered every mind, regardless of wealth or status. A deeper awareness of the bonds that bind us all — in pain as in prosperity — has gripped young and old.
    In the early beginnings of the 21st century — a century already violently disabused of any hopes that progress towards global peace and prosperity is inevitable — this new reality can no longer be ignored. It must be confronted. ~ Kofi Annan ~

The Quote of the Day (QOTD) is a prominent feature of the Wikiquote Main Page. Thank you for submitting, reviewing, and ranking suggestions!

Ranking system
4 : Excellent – should definitely be used. (This is the utmost ranking and should be used by any editor for only one quote at a time for each date.)
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.
An averaging of the rankings provided to each suggestion produces it’s general ranking in considerations for selection of Quote of the Day. The selections made are usually chosen from the top ranked options existing on the page, but the provision of highly ranked late additions, especially in regard to special events (most commonly in regard to the deaths of famous people, or other major social or physical occurrences), always remain an option for final selections.
Thank you for participating!


Suggestions

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The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death. ~ Emile Cioran


What to think of other people? I ask myself this question each time I make a new acquaintance. So strange does it seem to me that we exist, and that we consent to exist. ~ Emile Cioran


Chaos is rejecting all you have learned. Chaos is being yourself. ~ Emile Cioran


Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows. ~ Emile Cioran


It is because we are all impostors that we endure each other. ~ Emile Cioran


Glory—once achieved, what is it worth? ~ Emile Cioran

  • 4 Zarbon 01:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) A rather simplistic and presumptive rhetorical question — the worth of any form of glory is in how it was obtained, among whom it is manifest, and how it is used.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity? ~ Emile Cioran

  • 3 Zarbon 01:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) All things matter to those with a profound sense of Eternity.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion. ~ Emile Cioran


One hardly saves a world without ruling it. ~ Emile Cioran


To devastate by language, to blow up the word and with it the world. ~ Emile Cioran

  • 3 and strong lean toward 4. Zarbon 01:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) but this needs context.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim. ~ Emile Cioran


The more we try to wrest ourselves from our ego, the deeper we sink into it. ~ Emile Cioran

  • 3 Zarbon 01:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3. I have corrected the misquote here and on the Cioran page by changing "rest" to "wrest" (confirmed by Google Book Search). - InvisibleSun 20:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

If we only have love
We can melt all the guns
And then give the new world
To our daughters and sons.If we only have love
Then Jerusalem stands
And then death has no shadow
There are no foreign lands.
~ Jacques Brel ~

You and me on the bobbing knee.
Didn't we cry at that old mythology he'd read!
I will come home again, but not until
The sun and the moon meet on yon hill.
~ Kate Bush ~
  • 4 ♌︎Kalki ⚓︎ 22:07, 7 April 2024 (UTC); in regard to the sun and the moon meeting above many invoked, evoked and evocative "yon hills" during the total eclipse of the sun on this date.