Wikiquote

March 29

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. ~ Peter Ustinov (recent death)
2005
If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted. ~ Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943)
2006
Good books tell the truth, even when they're about things that never have been and never will be. They're truthful in a different way. ~ Stanisław Lem (recent death)
2007
I have been all men known to history,
Wondering at the world and at time passing;
I have seen evil, and the light blessing
Innocent love under a spring sky.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2008
I have known exile and a wild passion
Of longing changing to a cold ache.
King, beggar and fool, I have been all by turns,
Knowing the body’s sweetness, the mind’s treason;
Taliesin still, I show you a new world, risen,
Stubborn with beauty, out of the heart’s need.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2009
On seeing his shadow fall on such ancient rocks, he had to question himself in a different context and ask the same old question as before, "Who am I?", and the answer now came more emphatically than ever before, "No-one."
But a no-one with a crown of light about his head. He would remember a verse from Pindar: "Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet."
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2010
She is young. Have I the right
Even to name her? Child,
It is not love I offer
Your quick limbs, your eyes;
Only the barren homage
Of an old man whom time
Crucifies.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2011
I am like a tree,
From my top boughs I can see
The footprints that led up to me.
~ R. S. Thomas
2012
Let despair be known
as my ebb-tide; but let prayer
have its springs, too, brimming,
disarming him; discovering somewhere
among his fissures deposits of mercy
where trust may take root and grow.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2013
The power of the imagination is a unifying power, hence the force of metaphor; and the poet is the supreme manipulator of metaphor... the world needs the unifying power of the imagination. The two things that give it best are poetry and religion.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2014
Sunlight's a thing that needs a window
Before it enter a dark room.
Windows don't happen.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2015
A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry. The message of the New Testament is poetry. Christ was a poet, the New Testament is metaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights in approaching my whole vocation as priest and preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preaching Christianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. … My work as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginative truth.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2016
Imaginative truth is the most immediate way of presenting ultimate reality to a human being … ultimate reality is what we call God.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2017
You have to imagine
a waiting that is not impatient
because it is timeless.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2018
The nearest we approach God … is as creative beings. The poet, by echoing the primary imagination, recreates. Through his work he forces those who read him to do the same, thus bringing them … nearer to the actual being of God as displayed in action.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2019
Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2020
We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but rather ones who speak for it and support it.
~ Eugene McCarthy ~
2021
The darkness
is the deepening shadow
of your presence; the silence a
process in the metabolism
of the being of love.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2022
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion one month ago, the war has led to the senseless loss of thousands of lives; the displacement of ten million people, mainly women and children; the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure; and skyrocketing food and energy prices worldwide.
This must stop. ... A cessation of hostilities will allow essential humanitarian aid to be delivered and enable civilians to move around safely. It will save lives, prevent suffering, and protect civilians.
~ António Guterres ~
2023
A slow singer, but loading each phrase
With history’s overtones, love, joy
And grief learned by his dark tribe
In other orchards and passed on
Instinctively as they are now,
But fresh always with new tears.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2024
Sometimes a strange light
shines, purer than the moon,
casting no shadow, that is
the halo upon the bones
of the pioneers who died for truth.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
2025
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edit

Perhaps, the 29th being the day on which the last American troops withdrew from South Vietnam, this quote by William Westmoreland, the threatre commander, could be considered:

"It's not that we lost the war militarily. The fact is that we as a nation did not make good our commitment to the South Vietnamese."

—This unsigned comment is by Jb17kx (talk • contribs) . [Suggestion made at 2007-03-29 03:32:07 (UTC) — the selection for 2007 had already been made at that time.]

Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette - the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace. ~ John Tyler

I'm kind of an accidental instrument, really, through which I hope that the judgment and the will of this nation can be expressed. ~ Eugene McCarthy

  • 3 Zarbon 22:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Ningauble 17:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The glove has been thrown to the ground,
The last choice of weapons made.
A book for one thought.
A poem for one line.
A line for one word.
~ Eugene McCarthy (DoB)

  • 3 Ningauble 17:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 02:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty. ~ Eugene McCarthy (DoB)

  • 2.5 Ningauble 17:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 02:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, Lord, if I must die today,
Please make it after Close of Play.
For this, I know, if nothing more,
I will not go, without the score.
~ John Major (DoB)

He arose, pacing the floor
Strewn with books, his mind big with the poem
Soon to be born, his nerves tense to endure
The long torture of delayed birth.
~ R. S. Thomas ~

  • 3 Kalki 19:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 02:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


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