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April 7

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of hell. ~ Saint Augustine
2005
Out of the struggle at the center has come an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are, and what this life is for. At the center humankind struggles with collective powers for its freedom, the individual struggles with dehumanization for the possession of his soul. ~ Saul Bellow (recent death)
2006
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
~ William Wordsworth (born 7 April 1770)
2007
In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs — in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time. ~ William Wordsworth
2008
I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if you believe yourself. ~ Charlton Heston (recent death)
2009
Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves. ~ William Ellery Channing (born 7 April 1780)
2010
There are seasons, in human affairs, of inward and outward revolution, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when...to dare, is the highest wisdom. ~ William Ellery Channing
2011
When I die, I want to die in a Utopia that I have helped to build. ~ Henry Kuttner
2012
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. ~ William Ellery Channing
2013
I call that mind free, which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven.
~ William Ellery Channing ~
2014
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be.
~ William Wordsworth ~
2015
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
~ William Wordsworth ~
2016
War is to be ranked among the most dreadful calamities which fall on a guilty world; and, what deserves consideration, it tends to multiply and perpetuate itself without end. It feeds and grows on the blood which it sheds. The passions, from which it springs, gain strength and fury from indulgence.
~ William Ellery Channing ~
2017
Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. … It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it's a healthy feeling. It's a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.
~ J.K. Rowling ~
2018
We need not war to awaken human energy. There is at least equal scope for courage and magnanimity in blessing, as in destroying mankind. The condition of the human race offers inexhaustible objects for enterprise, and fortitude, and magnanimity.
~ William Ellery Channing ~
2019
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society.
~ William Wordsworth ~
2020
Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science …
In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs, — in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time … Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge — it is as immortal as the heart of man.
~ William Wordsworth ~
2021
There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions. There will be no dialogue among the religions without global ethical standards. There will therefore be no survival of this globe without a global ethic.
~ Hans Küng ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard of his recent death.
2022
We have all seen the atrocities that have been committed in Bucha and other places in Ukraine. This reveals the true nature of President Putin's war, and the targeting and killing of civilians is a war crime and therefore, NATO allies are supporting the international efforts to establish all the facts, to investigate, and to make sure that perpetrators are punished. ... We have seen no indication that President Putin has changed his ambition to control the whole of Ukraine and also to rewrite the international order. So we need to be prepared for the long haul. We need to support Ukraine, sustain our sanctions, and strengthen our defences and our deterrence, because this can last for a long time and we need to be prepared for that.
~ Jens Stoltenberg ~
2023
We are all part of some cosmic pattern, and this pattern works toward good and not evil.
~ Henry Kuttner ~
2024
I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
~ William Wordsworth ~
2025
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This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
~ William Wordsworth (born April 7, 1770)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) But only if prefixed to begin with :
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there not
An art, a music, and a stream of words
That shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?
~ William Wordsworth

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
~ William Wordsworth

Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished. ~ William Wordsworth

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
~ William Wordsworth

Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour.
~ William Wordsworth

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4 but would extend it :

I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; — be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Ningauble 16:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC) for the extended quote.

Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own.
~ Billie Holiday (born April 7, 1915) and Arthur Herzog, Jr.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar...
~ William Wordsworth ~

  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a very strong lean towards a 4
  • 3 InvisibleSun 17:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great, is passed away.
~ William Wordsworth ~

  • 3 Kalki 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean towards a 4, but would now (2011 onwards) prefer to extend it to the full poem "On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic":
Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;
And was the safeguard of the west: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest child of Liberty.
She was a maiden city, bright and free;
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And, when she took unto herself a Mate,
She must espouse the everlasting Sea.
And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid
When her long life hath reached its final day:
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great, is pass'd away.

Another powerful principle of our nature, which is the spring of war, is the passion for superiority, for triumph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impatient of inferiority, and eager for preeminence and control. ~ William Ellery Channing

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost. ~ William Ellery Channing

  • 2 Zarbon 01:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
~ John Sheffield

There's no such thing in Nature; and you'll draw
A faultless monster which the world ne’er saw.
~ John Sheffield

  • 2 Zarbon 01:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC) needs context.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Read Homer once, and you can read no more;
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
~ John Sheffield

I believe in things I never used to. I think someone is trying to find me — has found me. And is calling. Who it is I don't know. What they want I don't know. But a little while ago I found out one more thing — this sword. … Sometimes, when my mind is — abstract, something from outside floats into it. Like the need for a sword. And not any sword — just one. I don't know what the sword looks like, but I'd know if I held it in my hand. … And if I drew it a few inches from the sheath, I could put out that fire up there as if I'd blown on it like a candleflame. And if I drew the sword all the way out — the world would come to an end! ~ Henry Kuttner

A doubled weapon wielded by the Face of Ea, wrought the cleaving apart of two universes.
Imponderable forces shifted when that cleavage took place. You and I know nothing about it, for it happened far beyond the perceptions of any sentient creature. But it happened. Oh yes, it happened. ~ Henry Kuttner

I'm going forward. I know — because I went. It was a wonderful world they had. I want to see more of it. I want to wake up in a time when the race of man is spreading through the galaxy, leaping across the gulfs between the stars, opening the gates to all the worlds. I want to and I will. ~ Henry Kuttner


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