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June 2

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Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
The difference between a hooker and a ho ain't nothin' but a fee. ~ Cheryl James ("Salt" of the rap group "Salt 'N' Pepa")
  • proposed by IP 66.157.59.118
2005
I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat. ~ W. Mark Felt (recent revelation of identity)
2006
A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms. ~ Thomas Hardy (born 2 June 1840)
2007
To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction — every kind of evidence in the logician's list — have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation. ~ Thomas Hardy
2008
The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people. ~ Cornel West
2009

The Poet's License! — 't is the right,
Within the rule of duty,
To look on all delightful things
Throughout the world of beauty.

To gaze with rapture at the stars
That in the skies are glowing;
To see the gems of perfect dye
That in the woods are growing, —
And more than sage astronomer,
And more than learned florist,
To read the glorious homilies
Of Firmament and Forest.
~ John Godfrey Saxe ~

2010

The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
~ Thomas Hardy ~

2011

Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong.

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

~ John Godfrey Saxe ~

2012
When Nature gives a gorgeous rose,
Or yields the simplest fern,
She writes this motto on the leaves, —
"To whom it may concern!"
And so it is the poet comes
And revels in her bowers,
And, — though another hold the land,
Is owner of the flowers.
~ John Godfrey Saxe ~
2013
You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people.
~ Cornel West ~
2014
Though the General's feelings and my own were perfectly in unison, with respect to our predilection for private life, yet I cannot blame him, for having acted according to his ideas of duty, in obeying the voice of his country. The consciousness of having attempted to do all the good in his power, and the pleasure of finding his fellow-citizens so well satisfied with the disinterestedness of his conduct, will doubtless be some compensation for the great sacrifices, which I know he has made.
~ Martha Washington ~
2015
To find beauty in ugliness is the province of the poet.
~ Thomas Hardy ~
2016
I remind young people everywhere I go, one of the worst things the older generation did was to tell them for twenty-five years "Be successful, be successful, be successful" as opposed to "Be great, be great, be great". There's a qualititative difference.
~ Cornel West ~
2017
At last, in a world torn by the hatred and wars of men, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child's play. A woman whose identity is known to none, but whose sensational feats are outstanding in a fast-moving world. With a hundred times the agility and strength of our best male athletes and strongest wrestlers, she appears as though from nowhere to avenge an injustice or right a wrong! As lovely as Aphrodite — as wise as Athena — with the speed of Mercury and the strength of Hercules — She is known only as Wonder Woman, but who she is, or whence she came from, nobody knows!
~ William Moulton Marston ~
  • proposed by Kalki — a quote of the first introduction of the Wonder Woman character, in regard to the first Wonder Woman feature film, opening in the US on this date.
2018

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

~ Thomas Hardy ~
2019
If all hearts were open and all desires known — as they would be if people showed their souls — how many gapings, sighings, clenched fists, knotted brows, broad grins, and red eyes should we see in the market-place!
~ Thomas Hardy ~
2020
To be an intellectual really means to speak a truth that allows suffering to speak. That is, it creates a vision of the world that puts into the limelight the social misery that is usually hidden or concealed by the dominant viewpoints of a society. "Intellectual" in that sense simply means those who are willing to reflect critically upon themselves as well as upon the larger society and to ascertain whether there is some possibility of amelioration and betterment.
~ Cornel West ~
2021
I am not apt to forget the feelings that have been inspired by my former society with good acquaintances, nor to be insensible to their expressions of gratitude to the President of the United States; for you know me well enough, to do me the justice to believe, that I am fond of only what comes from the heart.
~ Martha Washington ~
2022
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.
~ Thomas Hardy ~
2023
Is your heart far away,
Or with mine beating?
When false things are brought low,
And swift things have grown slow,
Feigning like froth shall go,
Faith be for aye.
~ Thomas Hardy ~
2024
A man should be only partially before his time — to be completely to the vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's warlike son been intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization without bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed, but nobody would have heard of an Alexander.
~ Thomas Hardy ~
2025
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[edit]

If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time. ~ Billy Joel

—This unsigned comment is by Mrfandango (talk • contribs) .
  • 2 Kalki 20:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Good quote but no clear relation to the date; the one by Martha Washington (upon a similar theme) that I've added below is related to her birthday today.
  • 1 Zarbon 13:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 J.A.R.N.Y.|🗣 01:25, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Above the plain rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow rose the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere than on a celestial globe. ~ Thomas Hardy

  • 3 Kalki 20:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC); but would now (2023·06·01) extend this for context to read:
Above the plain rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow rose the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere than on a celestial globe.
Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure give to the dark pile of hills that it seemed to be the only obvious justification of their outline. Without it, there was the dome without the lantern; with it the architectural demands of the mass were satisfied. The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that the vale, the upland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted only to unity. Looking at this or that member of the group was not observing a complete thing, but a fraction of a thing.

They don't pay me to think, they pay me to be an Admiral. ~ Archibald Berkeley Milne

Now at last, Patterson was ready to tackle the iron meteorite, to find the true age of the Earth. [He discovered that the] world is four and a half billion years old. . . . His reward for this discovery? A world of trouble. ~ In commemoration of the June 2, 1922 birth of Clair Cameron Patterson, from the seventh episode of the science documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014).

No matter where he searched on Earth, no matter how far he traveled back in time, the . . . naturally occurring [lead] levels in the air and water in the past were far lower. . . . Patterson fought the industry for [more than] 20 years before lead was finally banned in US [gasoline and other] consumer products.~ In commemoration of the June 2, 1922 birth of Clair Cameron Patterson, from the seventh episode of the science documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014).

The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.
~ Thomas Hardy ~
It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.
~ Thomas Hardy ~
Few people seem to perceive fully as yet that the most far-reaching consequence of the establishment of the common origin of all species is ethical; that it logically involved a readjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging, as a necessity of rightness, the application of what has been called the 'Golden Rule' from the area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom. Possibly Darwin himself did not quite perceive it. While man was deemed to be a creation apart from all other creations, a secondary or tertiary morality was considered good enough to practise towards the 'inferior' races; but no person who reasons nowadays can escape the trying conclusion that this is not maintainable. And though we may not at present see how the principle of equal justice all round is to be carried out in it entirety, I recognize that the League is grappling with the question.
~ Thomas Hardy ~
A well proportioned mind is one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.
~ Thomas Hardy ~



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