Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
In nature's infinite book of secrecy a little I can read. ~ William Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra
2005
It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. ~ Niccolò Machiavelli (born 3 May 1469)
2006
Education is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't. ~ Pete Seeger (born 3 May 1919)
2007
The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be. ~ Pete Seeger
2008
The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. ~ Niccolò Machiavelli
2009
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose under heaven.

~ Pete Seeger ~
2010
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
Nothing is of greater importance in time of war than in knowing how to make the best use of a fair opportunity when it is offered. ~ Niccolò Machiavelli
2011
It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? . . . Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either. ~ Golda Meir (born 3 May 1898)
2012
Few men are brave by nature, but good discipline and experience make many so.
Good order and discipline in an army are more to be depended upon than ferocity. ~ Niccolò Machiavelli
2013
It's up to you whether or not you want to do work with no contract. I think artists do need to do work with no contract, because what we're motivated by is not money. We're motivated by a need to express ourselves and to get our ideas out. That's the motivation. It turns out that when people like it they frequently will support you if you give them a means, but this is not a contract.
~ Nina Paley ~
2014
It seems that scientists are often attracted to beautiful theories in the way that insects are attracted to flowers — not by logical deduction, but by something like a sense of smell.
~ Steven Weinberg ~
2015
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
~ Steven Weinberg ~
2016
Whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli ~
2017
The corporations that hold these copyrights are media companies that also control most of the new media that comes out. Estimates vary, but it's said that 98 percent of all culture is unavailable right now because of copyrights. So the reason they hold the copyrights isn't because they want to get paid, it's because they don't want all the old stuff competing with the media stream that they control now.
~ Nina Paley ~
2018
♡ Copying is an act of love. Please copy & share.
~ Nina Paley ~
2019
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli ~
2020
A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli ~
2021
Copying is not theft
Stealing a thing leaves one less left
Copying it makes one thing more
That's what copying's for.
~ Nina Paley ~
2022
Every single one of you, whether you like it or not, is a bastion of democracy. And if you ever begin to doubt your responsibilities. If you ever begin to doubt how meaningful it is, look no further than what's happening in Ukraine. Look at what's happening there. Journalists are risking and even losing their lives to show the world what's really happening.
You realize how amazing it is. Like in America, you have the right to seek the truth and speak the truth, even if it makes people in power uncomfortable. Even if it makes your viewers or readers uncomfortable. Do you understand how amazing that is?
I stood here tonight and I made fun of the President of the United States, and I'm going to be fine. — I'm going to be fine, right?
Like, do you really understand what a blessing it is? Maybe it's happened for so long that you — it might slip your mind, it's a blessing.
~ Trevor Noah ~
2023
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Suggestions edit

Audiences want to support artists. Which is pretty much how it's always been except during the last 100 years where it's turned into this really vicious, cutthroat, nasty business with all these blood-thirsty, parasitic middle-men. But historically, artists were relatively poor and supported directly by their audiences.
~ Nina Paley ~

A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli ~

Because there is nothing proportionate between the armed and the unarmed; and it is not reasonable that he who is armed should yield obedience willingly to him who is unarmed, or that the unarmed man should be secure among armed servants. Because, there being in the one disdain and in the other suspicion, it is not possible for them to work well together.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli ~

I am not a copyright reformer. I am a copyright abolitionist.
~ Nina Paley ~

When you shut down neurons to prevent them from transmitting signals, we call that "brain damage." Copyright is brain damage. It's brain damage in the great mind, and it's brain damage in the individual mind.
~ Nina Paley ~

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
~ Steven Weinberg ~

Hail hero, hail hero, child of your fate
Come into the kitchen don't stand by the gate
And show us your wisdom before it's too late.
~ Gordon Lightfoot ~