Wikiquote:Quote of the day/July 2007
- July 1
It is almost impossible to bear the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody’s beard. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
- July 2
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.
- July 3
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
- July 4
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
- July 5
There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them. ~ Jean Cocteau
- July 6
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
- July 7
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it. ~ Robert A. Heinlein
- July 8
Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it. ~ Jean de La Fontaine
- July 9
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
- July 10
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
- July 11
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
- July 12
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
- July 13
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
- July 14
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 ~
- July 15
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
- July 16
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
- July 17
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
- July 18
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
- July 19
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
- July 20
People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things. ~ Sir Edmund Hillary
- July 21
If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. ~ J. K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- July 22
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 ~
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 ~
- July 23
Our system presumes that there are certain principles that are more important than the temper of the times. ~ Anthony Kennedy
- July 24
New beginnings and new shoots
Spring again from hidden roots
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
Love must ever yet return.
Spring again from hidden roots
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
Love must ever yet return.
~ Robert Graves ~
- July 25
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance. ~ Eric Hoffer
- July 26
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
- July 27
A heart, a heart that hurts, is a heart, a heart that works. ~ Juliana Hatfield
- July 28
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
- July 29
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
- July 30
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 ~
- July 31
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