Wikiquote:Quote of the day/December 2009
- December 1
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The AIDS crisis is evidence of a world in which nothing important is regional, local, limited; in which everything that can circulate does, and every problem is, or is destined to become, worldwide. ~ Susan Sontag ~ |
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- December 2
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I do think that if I had to choose one word to which hope can be tied it is hospitality. A practice of hospitality— recovering threshold, table, patience, listening, and from there generating seedbeds for virtue and friendship on the one hand — on the other hand radiating out for possible community, for rebirth of community. ~ Ivan Illich ~ |
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- December 3
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He who wants to persuade should put his trust, not in the right argument, but in the right word. ~ Joseph Conrad ~ |
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- December 4
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That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy. ~ Thomas Carlyle ~ |
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- December 5
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Faith I have, in myself, in humanity, in the worthwhileness of the pursuits in entertainment for the masses. But wide awake, not blind faith, moves me. My operations are based on experience, thoughtful observation and warm fellowship with my neighbors at home and around the world. ~ Walt Disney ~ |
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- December 6
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Is Freedom only a Will-o'-the-wisp To cheat a poet's eye? Be it phantom or fact, it's a noble cause In which to sing and to die! ~ Joyce Kilmer ~ |
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- December 7
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There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. You learn the delivery of a part only before an audience. ~ Willa Cather ~ |
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- December 8
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I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter. ~ Horace ~ |
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- December 9
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A different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation. ... Acknowledging, as a fact, the equal rights of all its members to the treasures accumulated in the past ... it seeks to establish a certain harmonious compatibility in its midst — not by subjecting all its members to an authority that is fictitiously supposed to represent society, not by trying to establish uniformity, but by urging all men to develop free initiative, free action, free association. ~ Peter Kropotkin ~ |
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- December 10
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We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. |  |
- December 11
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If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? |
- December 12
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What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it. ~ Gustave Flaubert ~ |
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- December 13
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Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry... To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery. ~ George Pólya ~ |
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- December 14
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Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. |  |
- December 15
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It's kind of fun to do the impossible. ~ Walt Disney ~ |
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- December 16
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The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. ~ Arthur C. Clarke ~ |
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- December 17
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All he desired in life was that — that he could pick himself together again and go on with his daily occupations if — the girl, being five thousand miles away, would continue to love him. He wanted nothing more, He prayed his God for nothing more. ~ Ford Madox Ford ~ |
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- December 18
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Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible. ~ Paul Klee ~ |
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- December 19
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"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" ~ Charles Dickens ~ |
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- December 20
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Man is his own star, and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man Commands all light, all influence, all fate. Nothing to him falls early, or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. ~ John Fletcher ~ |
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- December 21
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All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character or illustrates an existence. ~ Benjamin Disraeli ~ |
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- December 22
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That's the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you. ~ Charles de Lint ~ |
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- December 23
| "Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless. ~ Samuel Smiles ~ |
- December 24
| People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success. |  |
- December 25
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How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments. |
- December 26
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The obstacles to peace are in the minds and hearts of men. In the study of matter we can be honest, impartial, true. That is why we succeed in dealing with it. But about the things we care for — which are ourselves, our desires and lusts, our patriotisms and hates — we find a harder test of thinking straight and truly. Yet there is the greater need. Only by intellectual rectitude and in that field shall we be saved. There is no refuge but in truth, in human intelligence, in the unconquerable mind of man. ~ Norman Angell ~ |
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- December 27
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Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. ~ Louis Pasteur ~ |
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- December 28
| At terrestrial temperatures matter has complex properties which are likely to prove most difficult to unravel; but it is reasonable to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star. |  |
- December 29
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If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches. |  |
- December 30
| Justice has nothing to do with victor nations and vanquished nations, but must be a moral standard that all the world's peoples can agree to. To seek this and to achieve it — that is true civilization. ~ Hideki Tojo ~ |
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- December 31
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The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it. ~ George Marshall ~ |
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