Wikiquote

April 27

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it. ~ Anatole France
2005
Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft (born 27 April 1759)
2006
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. ~ Edward Gibbon (born 27 April 1737 O.S. but actually 8 May in the Gregorian Calendar — confusions existed when this choice was made.)
2007
Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences. ~ Ulysses S. Grant
2008
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools. ~ Herbert Spencer
2009
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft
2010
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft
2011
The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft
2012
I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution. ~ Ulysses S. Grant
2013
Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience.
~ Coretta Scott King ~
2014
The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. … Think you that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses any thing in the eye of the physicist who knows that its elements are held together by a force which, if suddenly liberated, would produce a flash of lightning? Think you that what is carelessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow-flake does not suggest higher associations to one who has seen through a microscope the wondrously varied and elegant forms of snow-crystals? Think you that the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of a geologist, who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a million years ago? … The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.
~ Herbert Spencer ~
2015
Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world.
~ Mary Wollstonecraft ~
2016
Man needed one moral constitution to fit him for his original state; he needs another to fit him for his present state; and he has been, is, and will long continue to be, in process of adaptation. And the belief in human perfectibility merely amounts to the belief that, in virtue of this process, man will eventually become completely suited to his mode of life. Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity. Instead of civilization being artificial, it is part of nature; all of a piece with the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower.
~ Herbert Spencer ~
2017
We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone.
~ Robert M. Pirsig ~
2018
I now hold omnipotence.
What should I do with such almighty power?
The answer to that is actually quite simple:
Anything I want.
Anything.
I am incapable of error.
Any result that displeases me I can simply reverse.
There is nothing I need to worry on, for I am Thanos.
And Thanos is supreme.
~ Jim Starlin ~
2019
Tempt me no more, for I
Have known the lightning's hour,
The poet's inward pride,
The certainty of power.
~ Cecil Day Lewis ~
2020
Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
2021
My confidence in General Grant was not entirely due to the brilliant military successes achieved by him, but there was a moral as well as military basis for my faith in him. He had shown his single-mindedness and superiority to popular prejudice by his prompt cooperation with President Lincoln in his policy of employing colored troops, and his order commanding his soldiers to treat such troops with due respect. In this way he proved himself to be not only a wise general, but a great man.
~ Frederick Douglass ~
2022
We want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country able to protect its sovereign territory. We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine … it has already lost a lot of military capability, and a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.
~ Lloyd Austin ~
2023
It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse —
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.
~ Cecil Day Lewis ~
2024
  They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom's cause.
~ Cecil Day Lewis ~
2025
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The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong. ~ Herbert Spencer

In my view, the composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify human life and defend it. He must be a citizen first and foremost, so that his art might consciously extol human life and lead man to a radiant future. Such is the immutable code of art as I see it. ~ Sergei Prokofiev (born April 27, 1891)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 18:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 22:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward a 4.

When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) (Eastern Orthodox Easter 2008)

  • 2 Kalki 01:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC) * 4 Kalki 23:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC) no longer strongly related to the date.
  • 2 but I would have given it a 3 if it were trimmed to the last bit of the quote. I like this quote because it speaks of determination, a respectable quality, to endure and be saved in turn. Zarbon 00:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

What I did in my youth is hundreds of times easier today. Technology breeds crime. ~ Frank Abagnale

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

  • 2 Zarbon 17:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 04:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.

No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

God gave us Lincoln and Liberty, let us fight for both. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately you occasionally find men disgrace labor. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

  • 2 Zarbon 17:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 04:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the earth on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church. ~ Ferdinand Magellan (date of death)

  • 3 if this is truly properly attributed to Magellan. Zarbon 17:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 0 The available evidence indicates this to probably be a misattribution, and thus unacceptable as a quote of Magellan. ~ Kalki 04:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC) + tweaks

Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given belief, they demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but assume that their own needs none. ~ Herbert Spencer (dob)

Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and person hood. ~ Coretta Scott King (GoodReads quotes) (dob)

Wherefore my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods.
~ Plato ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 22:40, 21 October 2014 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4 — NO birthdate for Plato, but the year was 427 … and thus placing suggestions for him here at 4/27.
I don't know why black skin may not cover a true heart as well as a white one.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
The whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and 'reformatory' portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U.S. troops stationed in the southern states, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of Negroes, as much citizens under the Constitution as if their skins were white, the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
The Negro votes the Republican ticket because he knows his friends are of that party. Many a good citizen votes the opposite, not because he agrees with the great principles of state which separate parties, but because, generally, he is opposed to Negro rule. This is a most delusive cry. Treat the negro as a citizen and a voter, as he is and must remain, and soon parties will be divided, not on the color line, but on principle.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
I have given the subject of arming the Negro my hearty support. This, with the emancipation of the Negro, is the heavyest blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave a greatdeel about it and profess to be very angry.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
By arming the Negro we have added a powerful ally. They will make good soldiers and taking them from the enemy weaken him in the same proportion they strengthen us.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
The present difficulty, in bringing all parts of the United States to a happy unity and love of country grows out of the prejudice to color. The prejudice is a senseless one, but it exists.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
  • 3. Quote said by U.S. Grant about Robert E. Lee, saying he did not want to rejoice at the latter's misery as the latter had fought so hard for a cause, even though the cause, slavery, was a bad one. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:07, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:34, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
The great 'War of the Rebellion' against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that 'A state half slave and half free cannot exist.' All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
I can not doubt that the continued maintenance of slavery in Cuba is among the strongest inducements to the continuance of this strife. A terrible wrong is the natural cause of a terrible evil.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
Slavery in Cuba is a principal cause of the lamentable condition of the island.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
There had to be an end of slavery. Then we were fighting an enemy with whom we could not make a peace. We had to destroy him. No convention, no treaty was possible. Only destruction.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~
Suffrage once given can never be taken away, and all that remains for us now is to make good that gift by protecting those who have received it.
~ Ulysses S. Grant ~


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