Wikiquote:Quote of the day/December 2008
QOTD : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December
Today is Saturday, November 2, 2024; it is now 18:35 (UTC)
- December 1
| There's an old joke... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life — full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness — and it's all over much too quickly. ~ Woody Allen | .jpeg) |
- December 2
| Learned and leisurely hospitality is the only antidote to the stance of deadly cleverness that is acquired in the professional pursuit of objectively secured knowledge. I remain certain that the quest for truth cannot thrive outside the nourishment of mutual trust flowering into a commitment to friendship. ~ Ivan Illich |  |
- December 3
| The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. ~ Joseph Conrad |  |
- December 4
| Is there any religion whose followers can be pointed to as distinctly more amiable and trustworthy than those of any other? If so, this should be enough. I find the nicest and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions. ~ Samuel Butler |  |
- December 5
| Fantasy, if it's really convincing, can't become dated, for the simple reason that it represents a flight into a dimension that lies beyond the reach of time. ~ Walt Disney |  |
- December 6
| The Science of Language has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and even the most degraded jargons contain the ruins of former greatness and beauty. The Science of Religion, I hope, will produce a similar change in our views of barbarous forms of faith and worship. ~ Max Müller |  |
- December 7
| Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is. ~ Willa Cather |  |
- December 8
| The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people — that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature. ~ James Thurber |  |
- December 9
| A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things. ~ Grace Hopper |  |
- December 10
| "Hope" is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — And never stops — at all — And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard — And sore must be the storm — That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm — ~ Emily Dickinson ~ |
.jpg) |
- December 11
| The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it, seems to me the deepest root of all that is evil in the world. ~ Max Born |  |
- December 12
| Klaatu barada nikto! ~ Patricia Neal as "Helen Benson" in The Day the Earth Stood Still | .jpg) |
- December 13
| Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance. ~ Heinrich Heine |  |
- December 14
| The Art of Peace is not easy. It is a fight to the finish, the slaying of evil desires and all falsehood within. On occasion the Voice of Peace resounds like thunder, jolting human beings out of their stupor. ~ Morihei Ueshiba |
- December 15
| It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The universe as a whole is also weird, with laws of nature that make it hospitable to the growth of mind. I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension. ~ Freeman Dyson |  |
- December 16
| Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away. ~ Philip K. Dick |
- December 17
| Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, For rich repiner and household drudge! God pity them both! and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall; For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!" |
 |
- December 18
| Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all he brings, Risen with healing in his wings. Mild he lays his glory by, Born that man no more may die, Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give us second birth. Hark! the herald angels sing, "Glory to the new born King!" ~ Charles Wesley ~ |
 |
- December 19
| After the final no there comes a yes And on that yes the future world depends. ~ Wallace Stevens ~ |
- December 20
| I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. ~ John Steinbeck |
- December 21
| There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald | _(photo_by_Carl_van_Vechten).jpg) |
- December 22
| While you live ... you have a duty to life. ... The fey wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them. ... Otherwise they fade away. ~ Charles de Lint |  |
- December 23
| Working together, we can build a world in which the rule of law — not the rule of force — governs relations between states. A world in which leaders respect the rights of their people, and nations seek peace, not destruction or domination. And neither we nor anyone else should live in fear ever again. ~ Wesley Clark |  |
- December 24
| Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another. ~ John Muir |  |
- December 25
| The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has not Christmas in his heart. ~ Helen Keller |  |
- December 26
| Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear; They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. Bright Rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings, Waves in the eye of Heav'n her many-colour'd wings. ~ Thomas Gray ~ |
 |
- December 27
| There never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost. ~ Harold Pinter |  |
- December 28
| Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear. ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay |  |
- December 29
| The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? There is a brotherhood among all men. This must be recognized if life is to remain. We must learn the love of man. ~ Pablo Casals |  |
- December 30
| It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails. ~ Romain Rolland |  |
- December 31
| It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy... Let's go exploring! ~ Calvin in the last panel of Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson |  |
QOTD : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December
Today is Saturday, November 2, 2024; it is now 18:35 (UTC)