June 5

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
2005
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. ~ John Maynard Keynes (born 5 June 1883)
2006
Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
Of the signal maturity of your understanding.
Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth.
Of the sadness of your once valiant gaiety.
~ Federico García Lorca (born 5 June 1898)
2007
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. ~ John Maynard Keynes
2008
Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking. ~ John Maynard Keynes
2009
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. ~ John Maynard Keynes
2010
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. ~ John Maynard Keynes
2011
Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind that looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10000 years ago. ~ John Maynard Keynes
2012
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
~ John Maynard Keynes ~
2013 
Rank or add further suggestions…

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.

Suggestions

Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. (June,3,1944) ~ General George Smith Patton, Jr.

  • Deuxhero 01:23, 13 May 2007 (UTC) Rationale:June 5th is when his famous speech to the 3rd army was given (along with this quote).
  • 2 Kalki 19:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC) The famous speech, with slight variations, was actually given out over several days in June as Patton addressed the troops at several locations.
  • 3 Always liked this quote Zarbon 13:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Little black horse.
Where are you taking your dead rider? ~ Federico García Lorca

  • 3 if the nice imagery of the horse is seen here. Zarbon 04:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die. ~ Federico García Lorca

  • 4 because this is a great quote. In both instances, it seems to be out of our hands, so to speak. It was never the decision of the person who is born to want to be born, and likewise, the worry is never attributed with any instance. Nice, nice picture depicted here. Zarbon 04:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The reward for living is the living itself. ~ Charles Hartshorne

  • 3 although simplistic, it gets the message across. Zarbon 04:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

We live in a century in which everything has been said. The challenge today is to learn which statements to deny. ~ Charles Hartshorne

  • 3 Zarbon 04:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal. ~ John Maynard Keynes

  • 2 because this says it outright. Zarbon 05:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 2. The quote could use more context to see what he was referring to. InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward. ~ John Maynard Keynes

  • 2 for another outright gesture. Zarbon 05:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has. ~ John Maynard Keynes

  • 2 for being a rather comical outlook. Zarbon 05:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. ~ John Maynard Keynes

  • 3 for being outright. Zarbon 05:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4, but would revise this for accuracy to the earliest accounts of the remark:
The astonishing belief that the nastiest motives of the nastiest men somehow or other work for the best results in the best of all possible worlds.
A definition of "capitalism" atrributed to John Maynard Keynes
  • 3; but did he really say "most wickedest" and not "most wicked"? InvisibleSun 22:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits — a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities. ~ John Maynard Keynes

Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally then to succeed unconventionally. ~ John Maynard Keynes

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease ... But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight. ~ John Maynard Keynes

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be; and this national weakness finds its nemesis in the stock market. ~ John Maynard Keynes

The right remedy for the trade cycle is not to be found in abolishing booms and thus keeping us permanently in a semi-slump; but in abolishing slumps and thus keeping us permanently in a quasi-boom. ~ John Maynard Keynes

The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future. ~ John Maynard Keynes

Too large a proportion of recent "mathematical" economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols. ~ John Maynard Keynes

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Last modified on 10 January 2013, at 14:38