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May 15

day of the year
(Redirected from 15 May)

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind. ~ Louis Pasteur
2005
Things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams — day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. ~ L. Frank Baum (born 15 May 1856)
2006
The voice of the individual artist may seem perhaps of no more consequence than the whirring of a cricket in the grass, but the arts do live continuously, and they live literally by faith; their names and their shapes and their uses and their basic meanings survive unchanged in all that matters through times of interruption, diminishment, neglect; they outlive governments and creeds and the societies, even the very civilization that produced them. They cannot be destroyed altogether because they represent the substance of faith and the only reality. They are what we find again when the ruins are cleared away. ~ Katherine Anne Porter (born 15 May 1890)
2007
Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist — the only thing he's good for — is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning. Even if it's only his view of a meaning. That's what he's for — to give his view of life. ~ Katherine Anne Porter
2008
Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory. ~ Irena Sendler (recent death)
2009
The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's own — even more, one's own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being. ~ Katherine Anne Porter
2010
I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward. ~ L. Frank Baum
2011
There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own. ~ Katherine Anne Porter
2012
To be individual, my friends, to be different from others, is the only way to become distinguished from the common herd. Let us be glad, therefore, that we differ from one another in form and in disposition. Variety is the spice of life, and we are various enough to enjoy one another's society; so let us be content. ~ L. Frank Baum
2013
I think the world is like a great mirror, and reflects our lives just as we ourselves look upon it. Those who turn sad faces toward the world find only sadness reflected. But a smile is reflected in the same way, and cheers and brightens our hearts.
~ L. Frank Baum ~
2014
Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams — day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.
~ L. Frank Baum ~
2015
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 ~
2016
To destroy an offender cannot benefit society so much as to redeem him.
~ L. Frank Baum ~
2017

Se um dia alguém, perguntar por mim
Diz que vivi para te amar.
Antes de ti, só existi
Cansado e sem nada para dar.

If one day someone asks about me
Tell them I lived to love you.
Before you, I only existed
Tired and with nothing to give.

~ Luísa Sobral ~
2018
It is a callous age; we have seen so many marvels that we are ashamed to marvel more; the seven wonders of the world have become seven thousand wonders.
~ L. Frank Baum ~
2019
The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.
"You people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much."
~ L. Frank Baum ~
2020
The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although he was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. "For," they said, "there is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man." And, so far as they knew, they were quite right.
~ L. Frank Baum ~
2021
Rationality is what we do to organize the world, to make it possible to predict. Art is the rehearsal for the inapplicability and failure of that process.
~ Brian Eno ~
2022
It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings.
~ L. Frank Baum ~
2023
I have no patience with this dreadful idea that whatever you have in you has to come out, that you can’t suppress true talent. People can be destroyed; they can be bent, distorted and completely crippled. To say that you can’t destroy yourself is just as foolish as to say of a young man killed in war at twenty-one or twenty-two that that was his fate, that he wasn’t going to have anything anyhow.
I have a very firm belief that the life of no man can be explained in terms of his experiences, of what has happened to him, because in spite of all the poetry, all the philosophy to the contrary, we are not really masters of our fate. We don’t really direct our lives unaided and unobstructed. Our being is subject to all the chances of life. There are so many things we are capable of, that we could be or do. The potentialities are so great that we never, any of us, are more than one-fourth fulfilled.
~ Katherine Anne Porter ~
2024
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The whole problem of life, then, is this: how to break out of one's own loneliness, how to communicate with others. ~ Cesare Pavese

  • 3 because incommunicability is one of Pavese's main themes. Nemo 14:05, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
  • 2 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 09:07, 14 May 2015 (UTC) 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 10:52, 13 May 2012 (UTC) but with a lean toward 3, which is what I would likely rank it on date more clearly associated with the author, such as his birthday of 9 September.

Now we can cross the Shifting Sands. ~ L. Frank Baum

"The Shifting Sands" were one of the barriers surrounding the land of Oz, and these were his last words, to his wife. ~ ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:08, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Thou silver deity of secret night,
    Direct my footsteps through the woodland shade;
    Thou conscious witness of unknown delight,
    The Lover’s guardian, and the Muse’s aid! ~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (birthday)
  • That you’re in a terrible taking,
      By all these sweet oglings I see,
    But the fruit that can fall without shaking,
      Indeed is too mellow for me. ~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (birthday)
  • In the Valley of Shanganagh, where the songs of skylarks teem,
    And the rose perfumes the ocean-breeze, as love the hero's dream,
    'Twas there I wooed my Maggie. In her dark eyes there did dwell
    A secret that the billows knew, but yet could never tell. ~ John Martley
  • In the Valley of Shanganagh, where the sullen seagulls gleam,
    And the pine-scent fills the sighing breeze as death the lover's dream,
    'Twas there I lost my Maggie. Why that fate upon us fell
    The powers above us knew, perhaps, if only they would tell. ~ John Martley


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