Wikiquote:Quote of the day/April 2017

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April 1

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 ~

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April 2

The man who forgets does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance of the harm inflicted on him; forgiveness is the offspring of a feeling of heroism, of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness, and still oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness. Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom.

~ Giacomo Casanova ~

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April 3

You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves.

~ Jane Goodall ~

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April 4

We never get anywhere in this world without the forces of history and individual persons in the background helping us to get there. If you have the privilege of a fine education, well, you have it because somebody made it possible. If you have the privilege to gain wealth and a bit of the world’s goods, well, you have it because somebody made it possible. So don’t boast, don’t be arrogant. You, at that moment, rise out of your self-centeredness to the type of living that makes you an integrated personality.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~

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April 5

My whole life has largely been one of surprises. I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life — that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living.

~ Booker T. Washington ~

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April 6

Today I started loving you again
I'm right back where I've really always been;
I got over you just long enough to let my heartache mend,
Then today I started loving you again.

~ Merle Haggard ~

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April 7

Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. … It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it's a healthy feeling. It's a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.

~ J.K. Rowling ~

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April 8

If we only have love
We can reach those in pain
We can heal all our wounds
We can use our own names.

~ Jacques Brel ~

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April 9

There is in the word, in the logos, something sacred which forbids us to gamble with it. To handle a language skilfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.

~ Charles Baudelaire ~

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April 10

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.

~ William Hazlitt ~

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April 11

Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward — and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner.

~ Kurt Vonnegut ~

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April 12

The average guy is smart enough to know the difference between what works and what doesn't, and if you have bad information, sooner or later, you figure it out and you get onto something else.

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April 13

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.

~ Thomas Jefferson ~

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April 14

You waste time, my friend, in trying to convince me of all human life's failure and unimportance, for I am not in sympathy with this modern morbid pessimistic way of talking. It has a very ill sound, and nothing whatever is to be gained by it.

~ James Branch Cabell ~

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April 15

Love shows itself more in adversity than in prosperity; as light does, which shines most where the place is darkest.

~ Leonardo da Vinci ~

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April 16

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 ~

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April 17

The population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes, Anarchists and criminals.

~ Benjamin Tucker ~

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April 18

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.

~ Samuel P. Huntington ~

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April 19

In studying the literature connected with my work, I became aware of the great universal significance of visionary experience. It plays a dominant role, not only in mysticism and the history of religion, but also in the creative process in art, literature, and science. More recent investigations have shown that many persons also have visionary experiences in daily life, though most of us fail to recognize their meaning and value. Mystical experiences, like those that marked my childhood, are apparently far from rare.

~ Albert Hofmann ~

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April 20

It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is … There is much misjudgment in the world. … We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.

~ Peter S. Beagle ~
in
~ The Last Unicorn ~

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April 21

It is not violence that best overcomes hate — nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury. … Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how he acts — make his word your rule, and his conduct your example. … Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.

~ Charlotte Brontë ~

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April 22

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

~ Immanuel Kant ~

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April 23

If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her,
Dash'd all to pieces! O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd!
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er
It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The fraughting souls within her.

~ William Shakespeare ~
in
~ The Tempest ~

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April 24

The end will show the whole truth.

~ William the Silent ~

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April 25

Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.

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April 26

Weaknesses in men of genius are usually an exaggeration of their personal feeling; in the hands of feeble imitators they become the most flagrant blunders. Entire schools have been founded on misinterpretations of certain aspects of the masters. Lamentable mistakes have resulted from the thoughtless enthusiasm with which men have sought inspiration from the worst qualities of remarkable artists because they are unable to reproduce the sublime elements in their work.

~ Eugène Delacroix ~

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April 27

We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone.

~ Robert M. Pirsig ~

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April 28

"Good evening, gentlemen!" said the vampire. "Please pay attention. I am a reformed vampire, which is to say, I am a bundle of suppressed instincts held together with spit and coffee. It would be wrong to say that violent, tearing carnage does not come easily to me. It's not tearing your throats out that doesn't come easily to me. Please don't make it any harder."

~ Terry Pratchett ~
in
~ Monstrous Regiment ~

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April 29

Of what’s to come the wise perceive
things about to happen.

Sometimes during moments of intense study
their hearing’s troubled: the hidden sound
of things approaching reaches them,
and they listen reverently, while in the street outside
the people hear nothing whatsoever.

~ Constantine P. Cavafy ~

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April 30

I have not come into this world to make men better, but to make use of their weaknesses.

~ Adolf Hitler ~

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