Wikiquote:Quote of the day/May 2015

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May 1

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called "guessing what was at the other side of the hill."

~ Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington ~

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May 2

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

~ Gospel of John ~
as translated in the
~ King James Version ~

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May 3

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

~ Steven Weinberg ~

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May 4

Virtually all ideologues, of any variety, are fearful and insecure, which is why they are drawn to ideologies that promise prefabricated answers for all circumstances.

~ Jane Jacobs ~

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May 5

Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won’t be made safer by creating barriers between people. Cries of “They’re evil, let’s get ‘em” or “The infidels must die” sound frightening, but they’re desperately empty of argument and understanding. They’re the rallying cries of prejudice, the call to arms of those who find it easier to hate than admit they might be not be right about everything.
Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

~ Michael Palin ~

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May 6

I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.

~ Sydney Carter ~

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May 7

We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.

~ Rabindranath Tagore ~

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May 8

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. … Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

~ Friedrich Hayek ~

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May 9

Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights.

~ José Ortega y Gasset ~

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May 10

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

~ Abraham Lincoln ~

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May 11

It is easy to kill someone with a slash of a sword. It is hard to be impossible for others to cut down.

~ Yagyū Munenori ~

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May 12

Mysticism: to dwell on the unseen, to withdraw ourselves from the things of sense into communion with God — to endeavour to partake of the Divine nature; that is, of Holiness. When we ask ourselves only what is right, or what is the will of God (the same question), then we may truly be said to live in His light.

~ Florence Nightingale ~

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May 13

He that made all things for love, by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep them without end.

~ Julian of Norwich ~

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May 14

It is the interest of the individual and of all society, that he should be made, at the earliest period, to understand his own construction, the proper use of its parts, and how to keep them at all times in a state of health.

~ Robert Owen ~

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May 15

One might think you knew all about witches, to hear you chatter. But your words prove you to be very ignorant of the subject. You may find good people and bad people in the world; and so, I suppose, you may find good witches and bad witches. But I must confess most of the witches I have known were very respectable, indeed, and famous for their kind actions.

~ L. Frank Baum ~

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May 16

Acceptance is right. Kindness is right. Love is right. I pray, right now, that we're moving into a kinder time when prejudice is overcome by understanding; when narrow-mindedness, and narrow-minded bigotry is overwhelmed by open-hearted empathy; when the pain of judgmentalism is replaced by the purity of love.

~ Janet Jackson ~

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May 17

My view is this: We teach nothing. We do not teach physics nor do we teach students. (I take physics merely as an example.) What is the same thing: No one is taught anything! Here lies the folly of this business. We try to teach somebody nothing. This is a sorry endeavour for no one can be taught a thing.
What we do, if we are successful, is to stir interest in the matter at hand, awaken enthusiasm for it, arouse a curiosity, kindle a feeling, fire up the imagination. To my own teachers who handled me in this way, I owe a great and lasting debt.

~ Julius Sumner Miller ~

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May 18

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

~ Bertrand Russell ~

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May 19

Progress leads to confusion leads to progress and on and on without respite. Every one of the many major advances … created sooner or later, more often sooner, new problems. These confusions, never twice the same, are not to be deplored. Rather, those who participate experience them as a privilege.

~ Abraham Pais ~

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May 20

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.

~ John Stuart Mill ~

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May 21

I have come to believe … that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the test of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramatic form will reveal itself as platitudinous and effete. That which may have sounded like righteous teaching when it was remote and wordy, will be challenged afresh when it is obliged to simulate life itself.

~ Jane Addams ~

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May 22

It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact.

~ Arthur Conan Doyle ~
in
~ A Study in Scarlet ~

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May 23

Plants of great vigor will almost always struggle into blossom, despite impediments. But there should be encouragement, and a free genial atmosphere for those of more timid sort, fair play for each in its own kind.

~ Margaret Fuller ~

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May 24

God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.

~ Harry Emerson Fosdick ~

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May 25

I've always believed in numbers. In the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask, what truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back — and I have made the most important discovery of my career — the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found.

~ John Forbes Nash, Jr. ~
as portrayed in
~ A Beautiful Mind ~

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May 26

We erased a problem by not trying to erase the problem, by saying, "This is in the nature of what we do." It's really weird that it could be that simple.

~ Ward Cunningham ~

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May 27

The closer I get to the burning core of my being, the things which are most painful to me, the better is my work. … It is a love/hate relationship I have with the human race. I am an elitist, and I feel that my responsibility is to drag the human race along with me — that I will never pander to, or speak down to, or play the safe game. Because my immortal soul will be lost.

~ Harlan Ellison ~

File:Pesadilla (8189437215).jpg

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May 28

Possibly all art flowers more readily in silence. Certainly the state of simplicity and humility is the only desirable one for artist or for man. While to reach it may be impossible, to attempt to do so is imperative.

~ Patrick White ~

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May 29

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. No one sees anything funny in a tree falling down. No one sees a delicate absurdity in a stone falling down. No man stops in the road and roars with laughter at the sight of the snow coming down. The fall of thunderbolts is treated with some gravity. The fall of roofs and high buildings is taken seriously. It is only when a man tumbles down that we laugh. Why do we laugh? Because it is a grave religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

~ G. K. Chesterton ~

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May 30

You say that you are my judge. I do not know if you are! But I tell you that you must take good care not to judge me wrongly, because you will put yourself in great danger. I warn you, so that if God punishes you for it, I would have done my duty by telling you!

~ Joan of Arc ~

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May 31

The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else,
They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.

They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,
Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings,
To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.

~ Walt Whitman ~
in
~ Song of the Answerer ~

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Today is Tuesday, April 23, 2024; it is now 21:39 (UTC)