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December 2

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. ~ Helen Keller
2005
I do not believe that friendship today can flower out — can come out — of political life. I do believe that if there is something like a political life-to-be — to remain for us, in this world of technology — then it begins with friendship. ~ Ivan Illich (died 2 December 2002)
2006
The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring. ~ Ivan Illich (date of death)
2007
Ultimately, leadership requires action: daring to take steps that are necessary but unpopular, challenging the status quo in order to reach a brighter future. And to push for peace is ultimately personal sacrifice, for leadership is not easy. It is born of a passion, and it is a commitment. Leadership is a commitment to an idea, to a dream, and to a vision of what can be. And my dream is for my land and my people to cease fighting and allow our children to reach their full potential regardless of sex, status, or belief. ~ Benazir Bhutto (became first female Prime Minister of Pakistan on 2 December 1988)
2008
Learned and leisured hospitality is the only antidote to the stance of deadly cleverness that is acquired in the professional pursuit of objectively secured knowledge. I remain certain that the quest for truth cannot thrive outside the nourishment of mutual trust flowering into a commitment to friendship. ~ Ivan Illich (date of death)
2009
I do think that if I had to choose one word to which hope can be tied it is hospitality. A practice of hospitality— recovering threshold, table, patience, listening, and from there generating seedbeds for virtue and friendship on the one hand — on the other hand radiating out for possible community, for rebirth of community. ~ Ivan Illich
2010
It is not enough to have a beautiful voice. What does that mean? When you interpret a role, you have to have a thousand colors to portray happiness, joy, sorrow, fear. How can you do this with only a beautiful voice? Even if you sing harshly sometimes, as I have frequently done, it is a necessity of expression. You have to do it, even if people will not understand. But in the long run they will, because you must persuade them of what you're doing. ~ Maria Callas
2011
Jesus was an anarchist savior. That's what the Gospels tell us. ~ Ivan Illich
2012
Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me.
~ Maria Callas ~
2013
We're just a conceited naked ape, but in our minds we're some "divine legend" and we see ourselves as some sort of god, seeing we can decide what will live and what will die, what will be saved and what will be destroyed, but honestly we're just a bunch of primates out of control.
~ Paul Watson ~
After the use of this, the author's page was amended to read:
I think the problem is that we don't really understand what we are. In essence we're just a conceited, naked ape. But in our minds we're some sort of "divine legend", and we see ourselves as some sort of god. That we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and who will die and what will be destroyed and what will be saved. But the fact is we're just a bunch of primates out of control.
2014
I wear this Saint Christopher medal sometimes because — I'm Jewish — but my boyfriend is Catholic. It was cute, the way he gave it to me. He said if it doesn't burn through my skin, it will protect me. Who cares? Different religions.
The only time it's an issue, I suppose, would be like if you're having a baby and you've got to figure out how you want to raise it. Which still wouldn't be an issue for us, because we'd be … honest, and just say, you know, like, "Mommy is one of the chosen people … and daddy believes that Jesus is magic!"
~ Sarah Silverman ~
2015
That we shall probably never know the whole "truth" about the universe does not really matter very much; the fun comes in trying to find out. The natural pattern of current astronomy … is provided by the cryptic unity of nature itself (belief in which is the chief act of faith of the scientist)… the human brain is itself a part of nature, fanned into existence by billions of years of sunshine acting on the molecules of the Earth. It is not perfectible in the immediate future, even if biologists should wish to alter the brain — which is a questionable ambition. What men make of the universe at large is a product of what they can see of it and of their own human nature.
~ Nigel Calder ~
2016
One of my complaints is that you've got far more scientists than ever before but the pace of discovery has not increased. Why? Because they're all busy just filling in the details of what they think is the standard story. And the youngsters, the people with different ideas have just as big a fight as ever and normally it takes decades for science to correct itself. But science does correct itself and that's the reason why science is such a glorious thing for our species.
~ Nigel Calder ~
2017
In a sense, human flesh is made of stardust.
Every atom in the human body, excluding only the primordial hydrogen atoms, was fashioned in stars that formed, grew old and exploded most violently before the Sun and the Earth came into being. The explosions scattered the heavy elements as a fine dust through space. By the time it made the Sun, the primordial gas of the Milky Way was sufficiently enriched with heavier elements for rocky planets like the Earth to form. And from the rocks atoms escaped for eventual incorporation in living things: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur for all living tissue; calcium for bones and teeth; sodium and potassium for the workings of nerves and brains; the iron colouring blood red… and so on.
No other conclusion of modern research testifies more clearly to mankind’s intimate connections with the universe at large and with the cosmic forces at work among the stars.
~ Nigel Calder ~
2018
I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. …The old ideas are new again because they are not old, they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.
~ George H. W. Bush ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
2019
Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.
We also need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino. I know there are some who reject any gun safety measures. But the fact is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies — no matter how effective they are — cannot identify every would-be mass shooter, whether that individual is motivated by ISIL or some other hateful ideology. What we can do — and must do — is make it harder for them to kill.
~ Barack Obama ~
2020
The big discoveries raise questions that make astronomers work feverishly and argue with an agitation that verges on rudeness.
~ Nigel Calder ~
2021
When tales of the cosmos are told, this period of ours may always be recalled as that in which men first came to realise what a violent universe we inhabit.
~ Nigel Calder ~
2022
Can you hear me calling
Out your name?
You know that I'm falling
And I don't know what to say
I'll speak a little louder
I'll even shout
You know that I'm proud
And I can't get the words out
Oh, I
I want to be with you everywhere.
~ Christine McVie ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of her recent death.
2023
It is the individual who can and does make a difference even in this increasingly populous, complex world of ours. The individual can make things happen. It is the individual who can bring a tear to my eye and then cause me to take pen in hand. It is the individual who has acted or tried to act who will not only force a decision but also have a hand in shaping it. Whether acting in the legal, governmental, or private realm, one concerned and dedicated person can meaningfully affect what some consider an uncaring world. So give freely of yourself always to your family, your friends, your community, and your country. The world will pay you back many times over.
~ Sandra Day O'Connor ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of her recent death.
2024
Art is Harmony.
Harmony is the analogy of opposites, the analogy of similarities of tone, of tint, of line taking account of a dominant and under the influence of the lighting, in combinations that are gay calm or sad.
~ Georges Seurat ~
20225
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At all times, in every century, every age, there has been such a connection between despotism and religion that it is infinitely apparent and demonstrated a thousand times over, that in destroying one, the other must be undermined, for the simple reason that the first will always put the law into the service of the second. ~ Marquis de Sade (date of death)

  • 3 ~ UDScott 23:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 18:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 bystander (talk) 05:31, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no point in hiding that before the war we mostly learned to attack, and did not pay enough attention to such an important manoeuvre as retreat. Now we have paid for this. It turned out that the commanders and the staff were not sufficiently prepared to prepare and execute the retreat manoeuvre. Now, in the second week of war, we had in fact to learn from the beginning the most difficult art - the art of the execution of retreat. ~ Hovhannes Bagramyan (born December 2)

  • 3 because the art of retreat is important, whether it be for a military tactician or merely someone who needs to escape from a dangerous situation. Zarbon 06:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
    • SOURCE: The System of the International Organizations of the Communist Countries - Page 36 by Richard Szawlowski - Law - 1976
  • 1 Kalki 00:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Antiquary 20:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 21:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Eastern Prussia (Germany) was a battlefield during World War I years. And right from here, on September 1, 1939, began the spark of fire for the coming of the second world war. And in 1941, Eastern Prussia invaded Soviet soil with a powerful military onslaught, unleashing a grip of heavy burden, tragedy, and torture into the Soviet pre-Baltic and also the inhabitants of Leningrad, Pskov, and the Novgorod regions. Right from the very first days of the second world war, Eastern Prussia was completely transformed into a diabolic system of concentration camp strongholds for captured military people, and became a cruel prison for the young and females, who were brought from many European countries. In the first place, from the Soviet Union. And, aha! Now, after the winter of 1945, Soviet forces captured the descendants of these royal hounds in their very own doghouse! ~ Hovhannes Bagramyan (born December 2)

  • 4 because it states what happened, when Bagramyan's forces entered the Berlin bunker, because I like the ending of this description heavily. Especially the bit "And aha! Now, after the winter of 1945, Soviet forces captured the descendants of these royal hounds in their very own doghouse!" The comparison of the high ranking Germans to royal hounds is very powerful and just as the German shepherd was slain, so was its master. And in its very own doghouse no less. A magnificent and enthralling quote, but it might be best if trimmed, a matter of personal preference to just "And aha! Now, after the winter of 1945, Soviet forces captured the descendants of these royal hounds in their very own doghouse!" but still great either way. Zarbon 06:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
    • SOURCE: I. C. Bagramyan: A Photo Album About A Soviet Marshal - Yerevan - 1987
  • 1 Kalki 00:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Antiquary 20:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 21:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

No matter what you do, at the end of the day you can't please everybody. ~ Britney Spears

  • 2 Zarbon 03:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC), but perhaps a 3 if extended to:
Everyone now, they look back and they're like, "What happened to your sweet image that you used to be?" And I'm like, then when you came out you thought I was too provocative. It's like you can never win. No matter what you do, at the end of the day you can't please everybody, you know. I'm not here to please...
  • 0 Ningauble 17:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC) (unremarkably unoriginal)
  • 1 Antiquary 20:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 21:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must. ~ Maria Callas

  • 2 Kalki 00:45, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 22:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Antiquary 20:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 21:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddamn rules. ~ Maria Callas


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