Wikiquote:Quote of the day/March 2021

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Today is Monday, December 30, 2024; it is now 14:33 (UTC)

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March 1

The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.

~ William Dean Howells ~

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March 2

Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
And, ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.

~ Mikhail Gorbachev ~

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March 3

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when it's the only one we have.

~ Émile Chartier ~

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March 4

Knowledge must start from some foundation, something must be recognized as known; otherwise we shall be obliged always to define one unknown by means of another.

~ P. D. Ouspensky ~

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March 5

If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passsed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.

~ Penn Jillette ~

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March 6

All of our separate fictions add up to joint reality.

~ Stanisław Jerzy Lec ~

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March 7

In whatever state of knowledge we may conceive man to be placed, his progress towards a yet higher state need never fear a check, but must continue till the last existence of society.

~ John Herschel ~

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March 8

Survival in a stable environment depends almost entirely on remembering the strategies for survival that have been developed in the past, and so the conservation and transmission of these becomes the primary mission of education. But, a paradoxical situation develops when change becomes the primary characteristic of the environment. Then the task turns inside out — survival in a rapidly changing environment depends almost entirely upon being able to identify which of the old concepts are relevant to the demands imposed by the new threats to survival, and which are not.

~ Neil Postman ~

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March 9

America has always been a nation of fearless explorers who dream bigger and reach further than others imagined. … There are no limits so open your eyes and open your imagination. The next great discovery could be yours.

~ Barack Obama ~

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March 10

Through artists mankind becomes an individual, in that they unite the past and the future in the present. They are the higher organ of the soul, where the life spirits of entire external mankind meet and in which inner mankind first acts.

~ Friedrich Schlegel ~

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March 11

These are hard times. The world hurts. We live in fear and forget to walk with hope. But hope has not forgotten you. So ask it to dinner. It's probably hungry and would appreciate the invitation.

~ Libba Bray ~

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March 12

We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad.

~ Jack Kerouac ~
in
~ On the Road ~

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March 13

It is above all the valorizing of the present that requires emphasizing. The simple fact of existing, of living in time, can comprise a religious dimension. This dimension is not always obvious, since sacrality is in a sense camouflaged in the immediate, in the "natural" and the everyday. The joy of life discovered by the Greeks is not a profane type of enjoyment: it reveals the bliss of existing, of sharing — even fugitively — in the spontaneity of life and the majesty of the world. Like so many others before and after them, the Greeks learned that the surest way to escape from time is to exploit the wealth, at first sight impossible to suspect, of the lived instant.

~ Mircea Eliade ~

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March 14

The God Spinoza revered is my God, too: I meet Him everyday in the harmonious laws which govern the universe. My religion is cosmic, and my God is too universal to concern himself with the intentions of every human being. I do not accept a religion of fear; My God will not hold me responsible for the actions that necessity imposes. My God speaks to me through laws.

~ Albert Einstein ~

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March 15

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg ~

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March 16

I don't have a problem with someone using their talents to become successful, I just don't think the highest calling is success. Things like freedom and the expansion of knowledge are beyond success, beyond the personal. Personal success is not wrong, but it is limited in importance, and once you have enough of it it is a shame to keep striving for that, instead of for truth, beauty, or justice.

~ Richard Stallman ~

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March 17

O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!
O Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!

~ Madame Roland ~

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March 18

A real reconciliation of East and West is impossible and inconceivable on the basis of a materialistic Communism, or of a materialistic Capitalism, or indeed of a materialistic Socialism. The third way will neither be "anti-Communist" nor "anti-Capitalist". It will recognize the truth in liberal democracy, and it will equally recognize the truth in Communism. A critique of Communism and Marxism does not entail an enmity towards Soviet Russia, just as a critique of liberal democracy is not entail enmity towards the west. … But the final and most important justification of a "third way" is that there must be a place from which we may boldly testify to, and proclaim, truth, love and justice. No one today likes truth: utility and self interest have long ago been substituted for truth.

~ Nikolai Berdyaev ~

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March 19

Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.

~ Philip Roth ~

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March 20

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~
in
~ Locksley Hall ~

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March 21

Everything rhythmically organic is true. Everything, which results from the proper feeling for rhythmically organized spiritual units, is true and alive — alive within itself. When we lose the sense for such true beauty we lose our natural sense for the rich flavor of life, which is the basis for all inspirational work.

~ Hans Hofmann ~

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March 22

Up to a point a man’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.

~ Louis L'Amour ~

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March 23

One test result is worth one thousand expert opinions.

~ Wernher von Braun ~

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March 24

Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.

~ William Morris ~

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March 25

In my opinion we learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men’s behaviour. We study it, as we listen to music or read poetry, for pleasure, not for instruction.

~ A. J. P. Taylor ~

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March 26

The word "mundane" has come to mean boring and dull, and it really shouldn't. It should mean the opposite because it comes from the latin mundus, meaning the world, and the world is anything but dull; the world is wonderful. There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.

~ Richard Dawkins ~

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March 27

A modern theory of knowledge which takes account of the relational as distinct from the merely relative character of all historical knowledge must start with the assumption that there are spheres of thought in which it is impossible to conceive of absolute truth existing independently of the values and position of the subject and unrelated to the social context. Even a god could not formulate a proposition on historical subjects like 2 x 2 = 4, for what is intelligible in history can be formulated only with reference to problems and conceptual constructions which themselves arise in the flux of historical experience.

~ Karl Mannheim ~

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March 28

Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

~ Paul of Tarsus ~
in
~ Epistle to the Galatians ~

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March 29

The darkness
is the deepening shadow
of your presence; the silence a
process in the metabolism
of the being of love.

~ R. S. Thomas ~

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March 30

The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose.

~ Vincent Van Gogh ~

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March 31

One does not fall "in" or "out" of love. One grows in love.

~ Leo Buscaglia ~

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Today is Monday, December 30, 2024; it is now 14:33 (UTC)