September 12

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003: Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true. ~ Niels Bohr

2004: The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. ~ Carl Sagan

2005

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of the truth — that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one. ~ H. L. Mencken (born 12 September 1880)

proposed by Kalki

2006

When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either. ~ Jesse Owens (born 12 September 1913)

proposed by Kalki

2007

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right... The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds. ~ H. L. Mencken (born 12 September 1880)

proposed by Kalki

2008

If man had more of a sense of humor, things might have turned out differently. ~ Stanisław Lem (born 12 September 1921)

proposed by Kalki

2009

You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down. ~ Stanisław Lem

proposed by Kalki

2010

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous. ~ Charles Dudley Warner

proposed by Zarbon

2011

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us — that's where it's at. ~ Jesse Owens

proposed by Kalki

2012

There is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us — that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence — then we don't like it any more.

~ Stanisław Lem ~

proposed by Kalki

2013

It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it's close.

~ Jesse Owens ~

proposed by Kalki

2014

Each civilization may choose one of two roads to travel, that is, either fret itself to death, or pet itself to death. And in the course of doing one or the other, it eats its way into the Universe, turning cinders and flinders of stars into toilet seats, pegs, gears, cigarette holders and pillowcases, and it does this because, unable to fathom the Universe, it seeks to change that Fathomlessness into Something Fathomable.

~ Stanisław Lem ~

proposed by Kalki

2015

Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly perfectly conceivable that He may have finished it and then turned it over to lesser gods to operate. In the same way many human institutions are turned over to grossly inferior men. This is true, for example, of most universities, and of all great newspapers.

~ H. L. Mencken ~

proposed by Kalki

2016

Like it or not, we have placed our destiny in the hands of the experts. A politician is, after all, a kind of expert, if self-styled. Even the fact that competent experts must serve under politicians of mediocre intelligence and little foresight is a problem that we are stuck with, because the experts themselves cannot agree on any major world issue. A logocracy of quarreling experts might be no better than the rule of the mediocrities to which we are subject. The declining intellectual quality of political leadership is the result of the growing complexity of the world. Since no one, be he endowed with the highest wisdom, can grasp it in its entirety, it is those who are least bothered by this who strive for power.

~ Stanisław Lem ~

proposed by Kalki

2017

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

~ H. L. Mencken ~

proposed by Kalki

2018

Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.

~ H. L. Mencken ~

proposed by Kalki

2019

Clarity of thought is a shining point in a vast expanse of unrelieved darkness. Genius is not so much a light as it is a constant awareness of the surrounding gloom, and its typical cowardice is to bathe in its own glow and avoid, as much as possible, looking out beyond its boundary. No matter how much genuine strength it may contain, there is also, inevitably, a considerable part that is only the pretense of that strength.

~ Stanisław Lem ~

proposed by Kalki

2020

He who must be what he is, may curse his fate, but cannot change it; on the other hand, he who can transform himself has no one in the world but himself to blame for his failings, no one but himself to hold responsible for his dissatisfaction.

~ Stanisław Lem ~

proposed by Kalki

2021

It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.

~ Steve Biko ~

proposed by Kalki; in regard to the anniversary of his death.

2022

Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve his age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside.

~ Stanisław Lem ~

proposed by Kalki

2023

Cancel me not — for what then shall remain?
Abscissas some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.

~ Stanisław Lem ~

proposed by Kalki

2024

Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got used to it.

~ H. L. Mencken ~

proposed by Kalki

2025: Rank or add further suggestions…

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

Explanations exist; they have existed for all times, for there is always an easy solution to every human problems — neat, plausible, and wrong. ~ H. L. Mencken (used on 17 May 2004)

One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent. ~ H. L. Mencken (used 20 August 2004)

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 (used 29 March 2006)

All of us, if we are of reflective habit, like and admire men whose fundamental beliefs differ radically from our own. But when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or count himself lost. … All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ~ H. L. Mencken

Used 1 April 2017; proposed by Kalki (talk · contributions)

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

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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.

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Suggestions

Dalton McGuinty. He's an evil reptilian kitten eater from another planet. (sorry) ~ Ontario Progressive Conservative Party (from a press release, released this day)

3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 19:11, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
1. Quite funny but not really very thought-provoking. David | Talk 23:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
1 InvisibleSun 00:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 22:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway. ~ Jesse Owens (born 12 September 1913)

3 Kalki 09:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 00:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 22:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that they may own a piece of it; they measure their success in life by their ability to buy it. ~ Charles Dudley Warner

3 Zarbon 19:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 21:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The war of good and evil present in all religions does not always end, in every faith, with the victory of good, but in every one it establishes a clear order of existence. The sacred as well as the profane rests on that universal order... ~ Stanisław Lem

3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

He who has had, has been, but he who hasn't been, has been had. ~ Stanisław Lem

3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Plentitude, when too plentitudinous, was worst than destitution, for — obviously— what could one do, if there was nothing one could not?. ~ Stanisław Lem

3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

We have wholly abandoned ourselves to the mercy of technological progress. The roles are now reversed: humanity becomes, for technology, a means, an instrument for achieving a goal unknown and unknowable. ~ Stanisław Lem

3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.