Wikiquote:Quote of the day/February 2025

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Today is Monday, March 17, 2025; it is now 22:09 (UTC)

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February 1

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

~ Langston Hughes ~

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February 2

Groundhog Day, apart from everything else, is a demonstration of the way time can sometimes give us a break. Just because we're born as SOBs doesn't mean we have to live that way.

~ Roger Ebert ~

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February 3

The struggle between the opponents and defenders of capitalism is a struggle between innovators who do not know what innovation to make and conservatives who do not know what to conserve.

~ Simone Weil ~

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February 4

It's so funny that people think I actually ran for President. I am maybe the most un-political person you're ever going to meet. When I put "Elected" out, it was definitely a satire ... "Alice Cooper for President" ... When everybody realized I was running against Nixon, you know — even on a joke level — I think I got a lot of write-in votes.

~ Alice Cooper ~

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February 5

The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. The history of Soviet Russia is a modern example of this ancient practice. I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our rights as free men. We must not burn down the house to kill the rats.

~ Adlai Stevenson II ~

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February 6

We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

~ Ronald Reagan ~

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February 7

I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws.

~ Thomas More ~

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February 8

The prophet is appointed to oppose the king, and even more: history.

~ Martin Buber ~

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February 9

Our oath was not to the Republican Party, not to the Democratic Party, not to Joe Biden, not to Donald Trump, but our oath was to defend the constitution.
And right now — right now literally at this moment that constitution is under the most direct and consequential assault in our nation's history. An assault not on a particular provision but on the essential structure of the document itself. It's hard to grasp what is happening because of all the events that are swirling around us over the last several weeks. It's coming from so many different quarters and so many different actors. It's hard to get a picture of what's really happening fundamentally.
But this is an assault, and how we respond to it will define our life's work, our place in history, and the future of our country. None of us will ever face a greater challenge.

~ Angus King ~

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February 10

There are many things worth living for, there are a few things worth dying for, but there is nothing worth killing for.

~ Tom Robbins ~

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February 11

Science is progressing at such a rapid rate that when you make a prediction and think you are ahead of your time by 100 years you may be ahead of your time by 10 at most.

~ Leó Szilárd ~

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February 12

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.

~ Abraham Lincoln ~

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February 13

Don't give up.
You know it's never been easy.
Don't give up.
'Cause I believe there's a place,
There's a place where we belong.

~ Peter Gabriel ~

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February 14

Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.

~ William Shakespeare ~
in
~ Much Ado About Nothing ~

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February 15

Now began the part of her life where she was just very beautiful. Except for nothing. Only winners will know what this feels like. Have you ever wanted something very badly and then gotten it. Then you know that winning is many things, but it is never the thing you thought it would be.

~ Miranda July ~

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February 16

No representative government can long be much better or much worse than the society it represents. Purify society and you purify the government. But try to purify the government artificially and you only aggravate failure.

~ Henry Adams ~

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February 17

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

~ Constitution of the United States ~

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February 18

Racial ignorance is a prison from which there is no escape because there’re no doors. And there are old, old men, and old, old women running institutions, governments, homes all over the world who need to believe in their racism and need to have the victims of racism concentrate all their creative abilities on them. And they are very easily identified.
They are the petulant ones who call themselves proud, and they are the disdainful ones who call themselves fastidious, and they are the mean-spirited ones who call themselves just. They thrive on the failures of those unlike them; they are the ones who measure their wealth by the desperation of the poor. They are the ones who know personal success only when they can identify deficiencies in other racial and ethnic groups. They are in prisons of their own construction: and their ignorance and their stunted emotional growth consistently boggle the mind.

~ Toni Morrison ~

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February 19

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the rollercoaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or the country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

~ Carson McCullers ~

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February 20

So weird, how our prejudices have given everyone their lane. Middle Easterner does something, they're a terrorist. Black person does something, they're gang-related, they're a thug. But if a white guy walks into a church killing nine people there, what do they lead with on the news? "And today, in an isolated incident, a lone gunman walked into a church opening fire and killing nine people." It's always a lone gunman. "A lone gunman with no ties to society whatsoever". They always separate them as quickly as possible.

~ Trevor Noah ~

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February 21

To each according to his threat advantage does not count as a principle of justice.

~ John Rawls ~

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February 22

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

~ George Washington ~

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February 23

The Greek word for philosopher (philosophos) connotes a distinction from sophos. It signifies the lover of wisdom (knowledge) as distinguished from him who considers himself wise in the possession of knowledge. This meaning of the word still endures: the essence of philosophy is not the possession of the truth but the search for truth. … Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.

~ Karl Jaspers ~

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February 24

Tomorrow will be the third anniversary of the large-scale war against Ukraine: a painful and shameful occasion for the whole of humanity! As I reiterate my closeness to the suffering Ukrainian people, I invite you to remember the victims of all armed conflicts, and to pray for the gift of peace in Palestine, Israel and throughout the Middle East, Myanmar, Kivu and Sudan.
In recent days I have received many messages of affection, and I have been particularly struck by the letters and drawings from children. Thank you for this closeness, and for the prayers of comfort I have received from all over the world! I entrust you all to the intercession of Mary, and I ask you to pray for me.

~ Pope Francis ~

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February 25

I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.

~ George Harrison ~

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February 26

Those are rare who fall without becoming degraded; there is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, Les Misérables.

~ Victor Hugo ~
in
~ Les Misérables ~

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February 27

It has always seemed strange to me … The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success.

~ John Steinbeck ~

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February 28

Truly man is a marvellously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him.

~ Michel de Montaigne ~

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Today is Monday, March 17, 2025; it is now 22:09 (UTC)