QOTD by month + Suggestions for: January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December
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Today is Thursday, January 28, 2021; it is now 06:34 (UTC)
- January 1
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- January 2
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- January 3
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- January 4
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- January 5
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Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d'état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes. The day after the fall of Khrushchev, the editors of Pravda, Izvestiia, the heads of the radio and television were replaced; the army wasn't called out. Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.
| ~ Umberto Eco ~
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- January 6
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My aim is not the establishment of an anarchist society or the total destruction of the state. Here I differ from anarchists. I do not believe that it is possible to destroy the modern state. It is pure imagination to think that some day this power will be overthrown. From a pragmatic standpoint there is no chance of success. Furthermore, I do not believe that anarchist doctrine is the solution to the problem of organization in society and government. I do not think that if anarchism were to succeed we should have a better or more livable society. Hence I am not fighting for the triumph of this doctrine. On the other hand, it seems to me that an anarchist attitude is the only one that is sufficiently radical in the face of a general statist system.
| ~ Jacques Ellul ~
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- January 7
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- January 8
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- January 9
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Relativism is not indifference; on the contrary, passionate indifference is necessary in order for you not to hear the voices that oppose your absolute decrees. … Relativism is neither a method of fighting, nor a method of creating, for both of these are uncompromising and at times even ruthless; rather, it is a method of cognition. If one must fight or create, it is necessary that this be preceded by the broadest possible knowledge ... One of the worst muddles of this age is its confusing of the ideas behind combative and cognitive activity. Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it.
| ~ Karel Čapek ~
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- January 10
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- January 11
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- January 12
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- January 13
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- January 14
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- January 15
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- January 16
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- January 17
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It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of this country. Our hope that if we work hard enough and believe in ourselves, then we can be whatever we dream, regardless of the limitations that others may place on us. The hope that when people see us for who we truly are, maybe, just maybe they, too, will be inspired to rise to their best possible selves.
| ~ Michelle Obama ~
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- January 18
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- January 19
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If justice be a natural principle, then it is necessarily an immutable one; and can no more be changed — by any power inferior to that which established it — than can the law of gravitation, the laws of light, the principles of mathematics, or any other natural law or principle whatever; and all attempts or assumptions, on the part of any man or body of men — whether calling themselves governments, or by any other name — to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of justice, as a rule of conduct for any human being, are as much an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny, as would be their attempts to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion in the place of any and all the physical, mental, and moral laws of the universe. If there be any such principle as justice, it is, of necessity, a natural principle; and, as such, it is a matter of science, to be learned and applied like any other science. And to talk of either adding to, or taking from, it, by legislation, is just as false, absurd, and ridiculous as it would be to talk of adding to, or taking from, mathematics, chemistry, or any other science, by legislation.
| ~ Lysander Spooner ~
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- January 20
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- January 21
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- January 22
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- January 23
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- January 24
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- January 25
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Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
| ~ W. Somerset Maugham ~
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- January 26
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- January 27
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For the last two years, the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock stayed set at three minutes before the hour, the closest it had been to midnight since the early 1980s. In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned: "The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon." In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent. It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way.
| ~ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ~
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- January 28
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Up, abysmal thought, out of my depths! I am your rooster and dawn, you sleepy worm: Up! Up! My voice will yet crow you awake! Unsnap the straps of your ears: listen! Because I want to hear you! Up! Up! Here there is thunder enough to make even graves learn to listen! And wipe the sleep and all that befogs and blinds you from your eyes! Hear me with your eyes too: my voice is a remedy even for those born blind. And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally. It is not my manner to wake great-grandmothers from their sleep only to tell them — go back to sleep! You stir, you stretch, you gasp? Up! Up! No gasping — you will speak to me! Zarathustra summons you, the godless one! I, Zarathustra, the advocate of life, the advocate of suffering, the advocate of the circle — you I summon, my most abysmal thought! Hail to me! You are coming – I hear you! My abyss speaks, I have unfolded my ultimate depth to the light!
| ~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
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- January 29
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When a person doesn’t understand something, he feels internal discord: however he doesn’t search for that discord in himself, as he should, but searches outside of himself. Thence a war develops with that which he doesn’t understand.
| ~ Anton Chekhov ~
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- January 30
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- January 31
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We move from part to whole and back again, and in that dance of comprehension, in that amazing circle of understanding, we come alive to meaning, to value, and to vision: the very circle of understanding guides our way, weaving together the pieces, healing the fractures, mending the torn and tortured fragments, lighting the way ahead — this extraordinary movement from part to whole and back again, with healing the hallmark of each and every step, and grace the tender reward.
| ~ Ken Wilber ~
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QOTD by month + Suggestions for: January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December
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Today is Thursday, January 28, 2021; it is now 06:34 (UTC)