Wikiquote:Quote of the day/February 2009
- February 1
| Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. ~ Langston Hughes ~ |
 |
- February 2
| History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. ~ Abba Eban |  |
- February 3
| The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just ... I am reasonable because I know the difference between understanding and not understanding and I am just because I have no opinion about things I don’t understand. ~ Gertrude Stein |  |
- February 4
| How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life. This is our modern danger — one of the waxen wings of flight. It may cause our civilization to fall unless we act quickly to counteract it, unless we realize that human character is more important than efficiency, that education consists of more than the mere accumulation of knowledge. ~ Charles Lindbergh |  |
- February 5
| All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. Don't be afraid of being out of tune with your environment, and above all pray God that you are not afraid to live, to live hard and fast. To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. You'll have more fun, you'll do more and you'll get more, you'll give more satisfaction the more you know, the more you have worked, and the more you have lived. For yours is a great adventure at a stirring time in the annals of men. ~ Adlai Stevenson |  |
- February 6
| One love, One heart, Let's get together And feel alright. ~ Bob Marley ~ |
 |
- February 7
| It is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day. ~ Charles Dickens |  |
- February 8
| Man's constitution is so peculiar that his health is purely a negative matter. No sooner is the rage of hunger appeased than it becomes difficult to comprehend the meaning of starvation. It is only when you suffer that you really understand. ~ Jules Verne |  |
- February 9
| I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth — it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky |  |
- February 10
| Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life. ~ Bertolt Brecht |  |
- February 11
| Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. ~ Thomas Edison |  |
- February 12
| With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. ~ Abraham Lincoln |  |
- February 13
| Morning has broken, Like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken Like the first bird. Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning! Praise for them springing Fresh from the Word! ~ Eleanor Farjeon ~ |
 |
- February 14
| How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. |
 |
- February 15
| Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation. ~ Susan B. Anthony |  |
- February 16
| All experience is an arch, to build upon. ~ Henry Brooks Adams |  |
- February 17
| All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity. ~ Giordano Bruno |  |
- February 18
| The heart unites whatever the mind separates, pushes on beyond the arena of necessity and transmutes the struggle into love. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis |  |
- February 19
| And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said "The words of the prophets Are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sound of silence." ~ Paul Simon ~ |
 |
- February 20
| No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. ~ Frederick Douglass | .jpg) |
- February 21
| Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods. ~ W. H. Auden |  |
- February 22
| The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. ~ George Washington |  |
- February 23
| We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with society, other individuals and with oneself. Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them. ~ Karl Jaspers |  |
- February 24
| The lot of critics is to be remembered by what they failed to understand. ~ George A. Moore |  |
- February 25
| Do what you want to do And go where you're going to Think for yourself 'Cause I won't be there with you. ~ George Harrison ~ |
 |
- February 26
| The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal. ~ Victor Hugo |  |
- February 27
| Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change To something new, to something strange; Nothing that is can pause or stay; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again, To-morrow be to-day. |
 |
- February 28
| I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old. ~ Michel de Montaigne |  |