Wikiquote:Quote of the day/April 2009

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April 1
 

Very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth.

~ William Harvey ~


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April 2
 

Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it.

~ Émile Zola ~


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April 3
 

If you have accomplished all that you have planned for yourself, you have not planned enough.

~ Edward Everett Hale ~


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April 4
 

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.

~ Black Elk ~


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April 5
 

God's own hand
Holds fast all issues of our deeds: with him
The end of all our ends is, but with us
Our ends are, just or unjust: though our works
Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this
At least is ours, to make them righteous.

~ Algernon Charles Swinburne ~


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April 6
 

Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Make our pleasant earth below
Like the heaven above.

~ Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney ~


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April 7
 

Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.

~ William Ellery Channing ~


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April 8
 

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

~ Yip Harburg ~


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April 9
 

These tall and handsome ships, swaying imperceptibly on tranquil waters, these sturdy ships, with their inactive, nostalgic appearance, don’t they say to us in a speechless tongue: When do we cast off for happiness?

~ Charles Baudelaire ~


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April 10
  It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. ~ William Hazlitt


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April 11
 

No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. ... Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses. .. The peril of this Nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope!

~ Charles Evans Hughes ~


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April 12
 

He that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) ~


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April 13
 

I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

~ Thomas Jefferson ~


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April 14
 

Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
One thing unshaken stays:
Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
Whereby decays
Each thing save one thing: — mid this strife diurnal
Of hourly change begot,
Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
And changes not.

~ James Branch Cabell ~


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April 15
 


Gentlemen, that is surely true, it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannot understand it, and we don't know what it means. But we have proved it, and therefore we know it must be the truth.

~ Benjamin Peirce on Euler's identity ~


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April 16
 

What one man can do himself directly is but little. If however he can stir up ten others to take up the task he has accomplished much.

~ Wilbur Wright ~


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April 17
 

The real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will.

~ Karen Blixen ~


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April 18
 

I believe that music can be an inspirational force in all our lives — that its eloquence and the depth of its meaning are all-important, and that all personal considerations concerning musicians and the public are relatively unimportant — that music come from the heart and returns to the heart — that music is spontaneous, impulsive expression — that its range is without limit — that music is forever growing — that music can be one element to help us build a new conception of life in which the madness and cruelty of wars will be replaced by a simple understanding of the brotherhood of man.

~ Leopold Stokowski ~


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April 19
 

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ)


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April 20
 

Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people — as may be noticed of most young children — does truth, this rigid, literal veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and bitter experience of years.

~ Dinah Craik ~


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April 21
 

We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality.

~ J. G. Ballard ~


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April 22
 

The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

~ Immanuel Kant ~


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April 23
 

I would not so dishonour God as to lend my voice to perpetuate all the mad and foolish things which men have dared to say of Him. I believe that we may find in the Bible the highest and purest religion ..... most of all in the history of Him in whose name we all are called. His religion — not the Christian religion, but the religion of Christ — the poor man's gospel; the message of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of love; and, oh, how gladly would I spend my life, in season and out of season, in preaching this! But I must have no hell terrors, none of these fear doctrines; they were not in the early creeds, God knows whether they were ever in the early gospels, or ever passed His lips. He went down to hell, but it was to break the chains, not to bind them.

~ James Anthony Froude ~


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April 24
 

The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.

~ Vincent de Paul ~


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April 25
  I will either find a way, or make one.
~ Hannibal ~


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April 26
 

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.
If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.

~ Ludwig Wittgenstein ~


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April 27
 

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft ~


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April 28
 

Too much magic could wrap time and space around itself, and that wasn't good news for the kind of person who had grown used to things like effects following things like causes.

~ Terry Pratchett in Sourcery ~


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April 29
 

He who hopes to grow in spirit
will have to transcend obedience and respect.
He'll hold to some laws
but he'll mostly violate
both law and custom, and go beyond
the established, inadequate norm.

~ Constantine P. Cavafy ~


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April 30
 

Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance — embracing all opposites.

~ Taisen Deshimaru ~


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Today is Sunday, November 10, 2024; it is now 09:01 (UTC)