May 16

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; if we begin with doubts, and are patient, we shall end in certainties. ~ Marcus Aurelius
2005
You say that you are my judge. I don't know if you are — but take care not to judge wrongly, lest you place yourself in great danger. ~ Jehanne Darc (Jeanne d'Arc; Joan of Arc) (canonized 16 May 1920)
2006
I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you. ~ Studs Terkel (born 16 May 1912)
2007
The universe is flux, life is opinion. ~ Marcus Aurelius
2008
Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear. ~ Marcus Aurelius
2009
The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources for defence, to the lowest degree of which human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection, and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in national development and aggrandizement. The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the fields of industrial employment and all the departments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible activity all the physical, moral, and social energies of the whole state. ~ William H. Seward
2010
I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue. ~ William H. Seward (born May 16, 1801)
2011
Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised. ~ Marcus Aurelius
2012
Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination?
~ George Bernard Shaw ~
2013
Religion is a great force — the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours. Instead of facing that fact, you persist in trying to convert all men to your own little sect, so that you can use it against them afterwards. You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying to uproot the native religion from your neighbor's flowerbeds and plant your own in its place. You would rather let a child perish in ignorance than have it taught by a rival sectary.
~ George Bernard Shaw ~
2014
What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.
~ George Bernard Shaw ~
in
~ Man and Superman ~
2015
Acceptance is right. Kindness is right. Love is right. I pray, right now, that we're moving into a kinder time when prejudice is overcome by understanding; when narrow-mindedness, and narrow-minded bigotry is overwhelmed by open-hearted empathy; when the pain of judgmentalism is replaced by the purity of love.
~ Janet Jackson ~
2016
If I were in a wood, I could easily hear the Voice which came to me. It seemed to me to come from lips I should reverence. I believe it was sent me from God. When I heard it for the third time, I recognized that it was the Voice of an Angel. This Voice has always guarded me well, and I have always understood it; it instructed me to be good and to go often to Church; it told me it was necessary for me to come into France.
~ Joan of Arc ~
2017
The light comes at the same time as the Voice. … I will not tell you all; I have not leave; my oath does not touch on that. My Voice is good and to be honored. I am not bound to answer you about it. I request that the points on which I do not now answer may be given me in writing. … You shall not know yet. There is a saying among children, that "Sometimes one is hanged for speaking the truth."
~ Joan of Arc ~
2018
At this weak, pale, tabescent moment in the history of American literature, we need a battalion, a brigade, of Zolas to head out into this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping, Baroque country of ours and reclaim it as literary property.
~ Tom Wolfe ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
2019
The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it.
~ Doris Day ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to her recent death.
2020
If ever I do escape, no one shall reproach me with having broken or violated my faith, not having given my word to any one, whosoever it may be.
~ Joan of Arc ~
2021
Remember always that the cause of the United States is the cause of human nature.
~ William H. Seward ~
2022
What counts is what you do with your money, not where it came from.
~ Merton Miller ~
2023
The Voice had promised me that, as soon I came to the King, he would receive me. Those of my party knew well that the Voice had been sent me from God; they have seen and known this Voice, I am sure of it. My King and many others have also heard and seen the Voices which came to me: there were there Charles de Bourbon and two or three others. There is not a day when I do not hear this Voice; and I have much need of it. But never have I asked of it any recompense but the salvation of my soul.
~ Joan of Arc ~
2024
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The color of the prisoner’s skin, and the form of his features, are not impressed upon the spiritual immortal mind which works beneath. In spite of human pride, he is still your brother, and mine, in form and color accepted and approved by his Father, and yours, and mine, and bears equally with us the proudest inheritance of our race — the image of our Maker. Hold him then to be a Man.
~ William H. Seward ~