Wikiquote

January 4

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2005
I know this in no way alleviates the enormous amounts of pain and loss experienced by those who have suffered from the tsunami, but I hope it can make a difference. ~ Sandra Bullock on her large donation to tsunami relief efforts of the American Red Cross
2006
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ~ Isaac Newton (born 4 January 1643)
2007
Men learn little from others' experience. But in the life of one man, never the same time returns. ~ T. S. Eliot, in Murder in the Cathedral (died 4 January 1965)
2008
The main Business of natural Philosophy is to argue from Phenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical. ~ Isaac Newton (born 4 January 1643)
2009
It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).
~ R.E.M. ~ (birthday of Michael Stipe, lead singer and major song writer in the band — which divides the credit on all its songs equally)
2010
That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough.
~ R.E.M. ~
2011
The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt.
The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify mens curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence. ~ Isaac Newton
2012
When your day is long
and the night,
the night is yours alone,
when you're sure you've had enough
of this life, well hang on.
Don't let yourself go,
'cause everybody cries
and everybody hurts
sometimes.
~ R.E.M. ~
2013
Godliness consists in the knowledge love & worship of God, Humanity in love, righteousness & good offices towards man.
~ Isaac Newton ~
2014
Christ is called the righteous & by his righteousness we are saved & except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall not enter into the kingdome of heaven. Righteousness is the religion of the kingdom of heaven & even the property of God himself towards man. Righteousness & Love are inseparable for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
~ Isaac Newton ~
2015
Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
~ Isaac Newton ~
2016
If your language lacks poetry and paradox, it’s unequal to the task of accounting for actuality. Otherwise anything radically new is literally unspeakable.
~ Bob Black ~
2017
Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don't care which form bossing takes so long as the bosses are women. Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and all of them want to keep us working.
You may be wondering if I'm joking or serious. I'm joking and serious.
~ Bob Black ~
2018
I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the people.
~ Isaac Newton ~
2019
You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed off to work from school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home at the end, are habituated to hierarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for autonomy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally grounded phobias.
~ Bob Black ~
2020
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.
~ Isaac Newton ~
2021
All you hear is time stand still in travel
And feel such peace and absolute
The stillness still that doesn't end
But slowly drifts into sleep
The stars are the greatest thing you've ever seen
And they're there for you
For you alone you are the everything.
~ R.E.M. ~
2022
Stand in the place where you live
Now face North
Think about direction
Wonder why you haven’t
Now stand in the place where you work
Now face West
Think about the place where you live
Wonder why you haven’t before.
~ R.E.M. ~
2023
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
~ Isaac Newton ~
2024
Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.
~ Isaac Newton ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

  • To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things. ~ Isaac Newton

The Quote of the Day (QOTD) is a prominent feature of the Wikiquote Main Page. Thank you for submitting, reviewing, and ranking suggestions!

Ranking system
4 : Excellent – should definitely be used. (This is the utmost ranking and should be used by any editor for only one quote at a time for each date.)
3 : Very Good – strong desire to see it used.
2 : Good – some desire to see it used.
1 : Acceptable – but with no particular desire to see it used.
0 : Not acceptable – not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
An averaging of the rankings provided to each suggestion produces it’s general ranking in considerations for selection of Quote of the Day. The selections made are usually chosen from the top ranked options existing on the page, but the provision of highly ranked late additions, especially in regard to special events (most commonly in regard to the deaths of famous people, or other major social or physical occurrences), always remain an option for final selections.
Thank you for participating!

Suggestions

edit

DOB : Bob Black · Isaac Newton · Michael Stipe

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. ~ Isaac Newton (born January 4, 1643)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 16:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC) A variant of this has already been used. ~ Kalki 16:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 17:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Pithy Francoln (talk) 21:51, 9 October 2016 (UTC) My impression is that many scientists who make world-altering discoveries find it very important to acknowledge those natural philosophers and scientists who came before them and whose insights they built upon when formulating their own new theories. I'm not a scientist, but I get the impression that many scientists are familiar with this thought from Isaac Newton, and many find it necessary to repeat a similar declaration of humility and gratitude right before publishing something they *know* is important. I propose running this quote in its form as shown here, and then just saying that this specific version of the quote has never before been run as a quote of the day.

It is all very well to be cautious, but if we are too cautious we will miss our opportunity. ~ Yoshijirō Umezu

  • 3 Zarbon 06:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

If I had stayed for other people to make my tools and things for me, I had never made anything. ~ Isaac Newton

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Religion is partly fundamental & immutable partly circumstantial & mutable. ~ Isaac Newton

The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very conformable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations. ~ Isaac Newton

Sure, on a larger scale, it was healthy to have people out there you cared about more than yourself. She knew that. But then there was the abject fear you would lose it. They say possessions own you. Not so. Loved ones own you. You are forever held hostage once you care so much. ~ Harlan Coben, Hold Tight (dob)

Trust is like that. You can break it for a good reason. But it still remains broken. ~ Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

Genius is a curse. That's how I look at it. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. They see the world how it truly is — and that reality is so horrible they lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity. ~ Harlan Coben, Caught

Love is like death, it must come to us all, but to each his own unique way and time, sometimes it will be avoided, but never can it be cheated, and never will it be forgotten. ~ Jacob Grimm, goodreads quotes (dob)

How often when we are comfortable, we begin to long for something new! ~ Jacob Grimm, goodreads quotes

I'm the out-of-court jester who won't settle, I up the vigilante, I'm a law unto myself but break it anyway! I made a forced landing on the Moebius Strip and now I want to know, which side are you on?
~ Bob Black ~
To demonize state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.
~ Bob Black ~
Most work serves the predatory purposes of commerce and coercion and can be abolished outright. The rest can be automated away and/or transformed — by the experts, the workers who do it — into creative, playlike pastimes whose variety and conviviality will make extrinsic inducements like the capitalist carrot and the Communist stick equally obsolete.
~ Bob Black ~

[The scientific method is] so powerful that it has carried our robotic emissaries to the edge of the solar system and beyond. It has doubled our lifespan, made the lost worlds of the past come alive. Science has enabled us to predict events in the distant future and to communicate with each other at the speed of light, as I am with you, right at this moment. ~ In commemoration of the birthdate of Isaac Newton - widely considered to be one of the greatest scientists who has ever lived - from the fifth episode of the science documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014) (the sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980)).

  • 4 Pithy Francoln (talk) 22:24, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
  • 1 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC) Though I admire both Newton and Sagan, as well as the series being promoted, the relevance to Newton's birthday is somewhat strained, and would prefer something by Newton.

Science works on the frontier between knowledge and ignorance. We're not afraid to admit what we don't know. There's no shame in that. The only shame is to pretend that we have all the answers. ~ In commemoration of the birthdate of Isaac Newton - widely considered to be one of the greatest scientists who has ever lived - from the second episode of the science documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014).

  • 3 Pithy Francoln (talk) 16:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
  • 1 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC) Though I admire both Newton and Sagan, as well as the series being promoted, the relevance to Newton's birthday is somewhat strained, and would prefer something by Newton.


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