Wikiquote

May 24

date

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. ~ Carl Jung
2005
I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. ~ Bob Dylan (born 24 May 1941)
2006
Every failure is a step to success. ~ William Whewell (born 24 May 1794)
2007
Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. ~ Benjamin N. Cardozo (born 24 May 1870)
2008
Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. ~ William Whewell
  • proposed by Kalki (proposed and chosen without recognition that part of it had been used in 2006)
2009
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
~ Bob Dylan ~
2010
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
~ Bob Dylan ~
2011
Magic words and incantations are as fatal to our science as they are to any other. Methods, when classified and separated, acquire their true bearing and perspective as a means to an end, not as ends in themselves. We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion. ~ Benjamin N. Cardozo
2012
Life consists not simply in what heredity and environment do to us but in what we make out of what they do to us.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick ~
2013
Peace is an awareness of reserves from beyond ourselves, so that our power is not so much in us as through us. Peace is the gift, not of volitional struggle, but of spiritual hospitality.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick ~
2014
The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all. No existent theology can be a final formulation of spiritual truth.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick ~
2015
God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick ~
2016
Our course of advance ... is neither a straight line nor a curve. It is a series of dots and dashes. Progress comes per saltum, by successive compromises between extremes, compromises often … between "positivism and idealism". The notion that a jurist can dispense with any consideration as to what the law ought to be arises from the fiction that the law is a complete and closed system, and that judges and jurists are mere automata to record its will or phonographs to pronounce its provisions.
~ Benjamin N. Cardozo ~
2017
No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined. One of the widest gaps in human experience is the gap between what we say we want to be and our willingness to discipline ourselves to get there.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick ~
2018
There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
~ Philip Roth ~
2019
Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world — making the most of one's best.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick ~
2020
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown.
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
~ Bob Dylan ~
2021
I'm going to spare the defeated, I'm going to speak to the crowd
I'm going to spare the defeated, I'm going to speak to the crowd
I'm going to teach peace to the conquered, I'm going to tame the proud.
~ Bob Dylan ~
2022
Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so; but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.
~ William Whewell ~
2023
I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war, and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick ~
2024
We may try to see things as objectively as we please. None the less, we can never see them with any eyes except our own.
~ Benjamin N. Cardozo ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…

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

  • I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

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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.
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Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation. ~ William Whewell (born May 24)

  • 3 because science is a deciphered truth, based on fact and fact alone. Misinterpretation has never played a role in the scientific defense, even when man has interpreted as such from nature itself. Zarbon 05:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 J.A.R.N.Y.🗣 01:07, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

If a nation does not want a monarchy, change the nation's mind. If a nation does not need a monarchy, change the nation's needs. ~ Jan Smuts (born May 24)

  • 3 because the needs and wants of man can be changed. Zarbon 05:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 19:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 22:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 J.A.R.N.Y. 00:58, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The emotional appeal of nature is tremendous, sometimes almost more than one can bear. ~ Jan Smuts (born May 24)

  • 2 because the effects of nature on one can be irreperable. Zarbon 05:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 but would extend this to "The intimate rapport with nature is one of the most precious things in life. Nature is indeed very close to us; sometimes closer than hands and feet, of which in truth she is but the extension. The emotional appeal of nature is tremendous, sometimes almost more than one can bear."
  • 3 For the extended quotation. - InvisibleSun 22:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 J.A.R.N.Y.🗣 01:07, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

It is the army that finally makes a citizen of you; without it you still have a chance, however slim, to remain a human being. ~ Joseph Brodsky

The formula for prison is a lack of space counterbalanced by a surplus of time. ~ Joseph Brodsky

  • 4 Zarbon 04:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 16:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC) * 2 Kalki 19:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Five or six hundred [aristocratic] heads lopped off would have assured you repose and happiness; a false humanity has restrained your arm and suspended your blows; it will cost the lives of millions of your brothers. ~ Jean-Paul Marat

No force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight. ~ William Whewell

  • 2 Kalki 19:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 I remember seeing this quotation, beginning "Hence no force," etc., cited in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as "an example of accidental rhyme and metre." In Bartlett's the quotation begins with "And so no force," etc. It might be better to restore the original phrasing, whichever it might be, so as to emphasize, by the cadence of the words, the serendipity of this rhymed-and-metered prose. - InvisibleSun 22:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 J.A.R.N.Y.🗣 01:07, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

Real Christians do not carry their religion, their religion carries them. It is not weight, it is wings. It lifts them up, it sees them over hard places. It makes the universe seem friendly, life purposeful, hope real, sacrifice worthwhile. It sets them free from fear, futility, discouragement, and sin — the great enslaver of men's souls. You can know a real Christian when you see him, by his buoyancy. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

In art, truth is a means to an end; in science, it is the only end.
~ William Whewell ~
It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.
~ William Whewell ~
We unfold out of the Idea of Space the propositions of geometry, which are plainly truths of the most rigorous necessity and universality. But if the idea of space were merely collected from observation of the external world, it could never enable or entitle us to assert such propositions: it could never authorize us to say that not merely some lines, but all lines, not only have, but must have, those properties which geometry teaches. Geometry in every proposition speaks a language which experience never dares to utter; and indeed of which she but half comprehends the meaning.
~ William Whewell ~
According to the technical language of old writers, a thing and its qualities are described as subject and attributes; and thus a man’s faculties and acts are attributes of which he is the subject. The mind is the subject in which ideas inhere. Moreover, the man’s faculties and acts are employed upon external objects; and from objects all his sensations arise. Hence the part of a man’s knowledge which belongs to his own mind, is subjective: that which flows in upon him from the world external to him, is objective.
~ William Whewell ~
We cannot observe external things without some degree of Thought; nor can we reflect upon our Thoughts, without being influenced in the course of our reflection by the Things which we have observed.
~ William Whewell ~


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