Wikiquote

September 16

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003
One can promise actions, but not feelings, for the latter are involuntary. He who promises to love forever or hate forever or be forever faithful to someone is promising something that is not in his power. ~ Human, All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche
2004
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. ~ Wilhelm Stekel
2005
A planned life is a dead life. ~ Lauren Bacall (born 16 September 1924)
2006
The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense. ~ Ann Richards (recent death)
2007
Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense. ~ Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (born 16 September 1678)
2008
It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word. ~ Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (born 16 September 1678)
2009
Descend, descend, Urania, speak
To men in their own tongue!
Leave not the breaking heart to break
Because thine own is strong.
This is the law, in dream and deed,
That heaven must walk on earth!
O, shine upon the humble creed
That holds the heavenly birth.
~ Alfred Noyes ~
2010

Thou whose deep ways are in the sea,
Whose footsteps are not known,
To-night a world that turned from Thee
Is waiting — at Thy Throne.

The towering Babels that we raised
Where scoffing sophists brawl,
The little Antichrists we praised —
The night is on them all.
~ Alfred Noyes ~

2011

We have come by curious ways
To the Light that holds the days;
We have sought in haunts of fear
For that all-enfolding sphere:
And lo! it was not far, but near.

We have found, O foolish-fond,
The shore that has no shore beyond.

Deep in every heart it lies
With its untranscended skies;
For what heaven should bend above
Hearts that own the heaven of love?
~ Alfred Noyes ~

2012
Heart of my heart, we cannot die!
Love triumphant in flower and tree,
Every life that laughs at the sky
Tells us nothing can cease to be:
One, we are one with the song to-day,
One with the clover that scents the world,
One with the Unknown, far away,
One with the stars, when earth grows old.
~ Alfred Noyes ~
2013

Carol, every violet has
Heaven for a looking-glass!

Every little valley lies
Under many-clouded skies;
Every little cottage stands
Girt about with boundless lands;
Every little glimmering pond
Claims the mighty shores beyond;
Shores no seaman ever hailed,
Seas no ship has ever sailed.

All the shores when day is done
Fade into the setting sun,
So the story tries to teach
More than can be told in speech.

~ Alfred Noyes ~
2014

Mystery: Time and Tide shall pass,
I am the Wisdom Looking-Glass.

This is the Ruby none can touch:
Many have loved it overmuch;
Its fathomless fires flutter and sigh,
Being as images of the flame
That shall make earth and heaven the same
When the fire of the end reddens the sky,
And the world consumes like a burning pall,
Till where there is nothing, there is all.

~ Alfred Noyes ~
2015
Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.
~ Francis Parkman ~
2016
Heart of my heart, we are one with the wind,
One with the clouds that are whirled o'er the lea,
One in many, O broken and blind,
One as the waves are at one with the sea!
Ay! when life seems scattered apart,
Darkens, ends as a tale that is told,
One, we are one, O heart of my heart,
One, still one, while the world grows old.
~ Alfred Noyes ~
2017
Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
~ Laurence J. Peter ~
2018
The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.
~ Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke ~
2019
Yes; as the music changes,
Like a prismatic glass,
It takes the light and ranges
Through all the moods that pass;
Dissects the common carnival
Of passions and regrets,
And gives the world a glimpse of all
The colours it forgets.
~ Alfred Noyes ~
2020

Grant us the single heart once more
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King.

Let darkness unto darkness tell
Our deep unspoken prayer;
For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.

~ Alfred Noyes ~
2021

The fool hath said … The fool hath said
And we, who deemed him wise,
We, who believed that Thou wast dead,
How should we seek Thine eyes?

How should we seek to Thee for power,
Who scorned Thee yesterday?
How should we kneel in this dread hour?
Lord, teach us how to pray.

~ Alfred Noyes ~
2022
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
~ Laurence J. Peter ~
2023
Heart of my heart, the world is young;
Love lies hidden in every rose!
~ Alfred Noyes ~
2024
Nations, like men, have their infancy.
~ Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke ~
2025
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We have believed and we do believe now that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

  • —This unsigned comment is by Pamri (talk • contribs) .
  • 2 Kalki 22:40, 15 September 2005 (UTC) A good quote, which I would rank higher on other days, but it has no clear correlation with the date and thus is not likely to become preferred over any good ones which do.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 08:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly. ~ Lauren Bacall (date of birth)

  • 3 Kalki 22:40, 15 September 2005 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 08:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 23:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 N6n 11:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

A shadow leaned over me, whispering, in the darkness,
Thoughts without sound ~ Alfred Noyes

  • 3 Zarbon 04:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Your God still walks in Eden, between the ancient trees,
Where Youth and Love go wading through pools of primroses.
And this is the sign we bring you, before the darkness fall,
That Spring is risen, is risen again,
That Life is risen, is risen again,
That Love is risen, is risen again, and
Love is Lord of all.
~ Alfred Noyes ~

  • 3 Kalki 23:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Enough of dreams! No longer mock
The burdened hearts of men!
Not on the cloud, but on the rock
Build thou thy faith again;

O range no more the realms of air,
Stoop to the glen-bound streams;
Thy hope was all too like despair:
Enough, enough of dreams.
~ Alfred Noyes ~

  • 3 Kalki 23:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 N6n 11:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Memory, out of the mist, in a long slow ripple
Breaks, blindly, against the shore.
~ Alfred Noyes ~

There’s a magic in the distance, where the sea-line meets the sky.
~ Alfred Noyes ~

Ye that follow the vision
Of the world's weal afar,
Have ye met with derision
And the red laugh of war;
Yet the thunder shall not hurt you,
Nor the battle-storms dismay;
Tho' the sun in heaven desert you,
"Love will find out the way."
~ Alfred Noyes ~

Your dreamers may dream it
The shadow of a dream,
Your sages may deem it
A bubble on the stream;
Yet our kingdom draweth nigher
With each dawn and every day,
Through the earthquake and the fire
"Love will find out the way."
~ Alfred Noyes ~

Getting whatever you want to get,
Is like drinking tea from a fishing net.
~ Alfred Noyes ~

Like the dawn upon a dream
Slowly through the scented gloom
Crept once more the ruddy gleam
O'er the friendly nursery room.
There, before our waking eyes,
Large and ghostly, white and dim,
Dreamed the Flower that never dies,
Opening wide its rosy rim.
~ Alfred Noyes ~

Beauty is a fading flower,
Truth is but a wizard's tower,
Where a solemn death-bell tolls,
And a forest round it rolls.
~ Alfred Noyes ~

He died and He went down to hell!
You know not what you mean.
Our rafters were of green fir. Also our beds were green.
But out of the mouth of a fool, a fool, before the darkness fall,
We tell you He is risen again,
The Lord of Life is risen again,
The boughs put forth their tender buds, and
Love is Lord of all!
~ Alfred Noyes ~

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 00:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 N6n 11:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


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