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Today is Thursday, November 21, 2024; it is now 06:29 (UTC)
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This page lists quote of the day proposals specifically for dates in the month of November, and quotes proposed should ideally have some relation to the day, or persons born on it, though sometimes exceptions can be made, usually for notable quotes that relate to recent events, such as the death of prominent individuals. Developing ideas of people or works to quote on specific days can be explored through the Wikipedia page: List of historical anniversaries. The numeric section heading of each date is also a direct link to the Wikipedia list of births, deaths, and other events which occured on that date.
- See also: November 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2013 · 2014 · 2015 · 2016 · 2017
Ranking system:
- 4 : Excellent - should definitely be used.
- 3 : Very Good - strong desire to see it used.
- 2 : Good - some desire to see it used.
- 1 : Acceptable - but with no particular desire to see it used.
- 0 : Not acceptable - not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
- 2003
- God is an Iron ~ Spider Robinson
- 2004
- The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- 2005
- I am everything —
Tonight I'll be your mother — I will
Do such things to ease your pain —
Free your mind and you won't feel ashamed.
~ "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" by Sophie B. Hawkins (born 1 November 1967)
- 2006
- The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."
~ Stephen Crane ~ (born 1 November 1871)
- 2007
- You cannot choose your battlefield,
God does that for you;
But you can plant a standard
Where a standard never flew.
~ Nathalia Crane ~
- proposed by Kalki (Originally proposed here because this had become attributed to Stephen Crane, retained and eventually chosen because of the touch of irony of it having originally placed here by mistake, where the first quote of the day had been "God is an Iron".)
- 2008
- The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all. ~ Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
- 2009
Some say this world of trouble
Is the only one we need
But I’m waiting for that morning
When the new world is revealed.
Oh, when the saints go marching in,
When the saints go marching in,
Oh Lord, I want to be in that number,
When the saints go marching in!
~ When the Saints Go Marching In ~
(quotes from one of Louis Armstrong's versions of the traditional song, with reference to All Saints Day)
- 2010
- It's not too near for me
Like a flower I need the rain
Though it's not clear to me
Every season has it's change
And I will see you
When the sun comes out again.
~ Sophie B. Hawkins ~
- 2011
- Hasten slowly, and without losing heart,
Put your work twenty times upon the anvil.
~ Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
- 2012
- 2013
- proposed by Kalki as a quote on the nature of sainthood, and the attitudes, behavior and conduct of saints, for "All Saints Day."
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
I got my break — big break — when I was five years old. And it's taken me more than seventy years to realize it. You see, at five, I learned to read. It's that simple, and it's that profound. I left school at thirteen, I didn’t have a formal education, and I believe I would not be standing here tonight, without the books, the plays — the scripts. It's been a long journey from Fountainbridge to this evening — with you all. Though my feet are tired, my heart is not.
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~ Sean Connery ~
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- proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- We’d all like t’vote fer th’best man, but he’s never a candidate. ~ Kin Hubbard
- 2005
- Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end? ~ Marie Antoinette (born 2 November 1755)
- 2006
- It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness. ~ Marie Antoinette
- 2007
- By the theory of our Government majorities rule, but this right is not an arbitrary or unlimited one. It is a right to be exercised in subordination to the Constitution and in conformity to it. One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights. Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression. ~ James K. Polk (born 2 November 1795)
- 2008
- You know, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew. ~ Studs Terkel (recent death)
- 2009
- Hunting hawks do not belong in cages, no matter how much a man covets their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They are far more beautiful soaring free. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold
- 2010
- Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, I do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than 10, nor less than five, years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree. ~ Joshua A. Norton (US Election Day 2010)
- 2011
- All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business creator. In the service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
The general laws of Nature are not, for the most part, immediate objects of perception. They are either inductive inferences from a large body of facts, the common truth in which they express, or, in their origin at least, physical hypotheses of a causal nature serving to explain phenomena with undeviating precision, and to enable us to predict new combinations of them. They are in all cases, and in the strictest sense of the term, probable conclusions, approaching, indeed, ever and ever nearer to certainty, as they receive more and more of the confirmation of experience. But of the character of probability, in the strict and proper sense of that term, they are never wholly divested. On the other hand, the knowledge of the laws of the mind does not require as its basis any extensive collection of observations. The general truth is seen in the particular instance, and it is not confirmed by the repetition of instances.
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~ George Boole ~
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- 2018
I was suddenly arrested by what seemed to be an awful voice proclaiming the words, "Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!" It reached my very soul — my whole man shook — it brought me like Saul to the ground. The great depravity and sinfulness of my heart were set before me, and the gulf of everlasting destruction to which I was verging. I was made to bitterly cry out, "If there is no God — doubtless there is a hell." I found myself in the midst of it.
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~ Stephen Grellet ~
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- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
A lot of writers write as if the hero sort of popped out of the box at age 22 fully formed. And one thing that raising children does is give you some sense of how human beings really are put together. So when you go to put together a character you can have a more realistic sense of where people really come from, why they really behave the way they do and what a tremendous amount of life and complexity lies behind every human being.
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~ Lois McMaster Bujold ~
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- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.
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~ Stephen Grellet ~
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- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician. ~ Charlie Chaplin
- 2005
- Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high,
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
~ Judy Garland as "Dorothy Gale" in The Wizard of Oz
- 2006
- Art is a revolt against fate. ~ André Malraux (born 3 November 1901)
- 2007
- Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan. ~ Wilhelm Reich (died 3 November 1957)
- proposed by Kalki (Reich died in prison on 3 November 1957)
- 2008
- Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness. ~ Wilhelm Reich
- 2009
- Athirst for personal salvation, the West forgets that many religions had but a vague notion of the life beyond the grave; true, all great religions stake a claim on eternity, but not necessarily on man's eternal life. ~ André Malraux
- 2010
- Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one's life well and happily... ~ Wilhelm Reich (date of death)
- 2011
- The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness. ~ André Malraux (born November 3, 1901)
- 2012
Once the masterpiece has emerged, the lesser works surrounding it fall into place; and it then gives the impression of having been led up to and foreseeable, though actually it is inconceivable — or, rather, it can only be conceived of once it is there for us to see it.
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~ André Malraux ~
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- 2013
- 2014
Natural work democracy is politically neither "left" nor "right." It embraces anyone who does vital work; for this reason, its orientation is only and alone forward. It has no inherent intention of being against ideologies, including political ideologies. On the other hand, if it is to function, it will be forced to take a firm stand, on a factual basis, against any ideology or political party which puts irrational obstacles in its path. Yet, basically, work democracy is not "against," as is the rule with politics, but "for"; for the formulation and solution of concrete tasks.
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~ Wilhelm Reich ~
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- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anybody else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians.
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~ Wilhelm Reich ~
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- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
Now and then I miss you Oh, now and then I want you to be there for me Always to return to me
I know it's true It's all because of you And if you go away I know you'll never stay.
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~ John Lennon ~
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- proposed by Kalki; in regard of today's [2023·11·02] release of "the final Beatles song".
- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US. ~ CATS of Zero Wing
- 2005
- After looking at mothers-in-law and seeing sons-in-law — I always felt that the jokes were on the wrong ones. No sir, you can look through everything I ever did write or say, and you never did hear me tell a joke about any mother-in-law — or any creed, color or religion, either. ~ Will Rogers (born 4 November 1879)
- 2006
- A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it. ~ William Styron (recent death)
- 2007
- There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. ~ Will Rogers
- 2008
- On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does. ~ Will Rogers (date of birth + US election day 2008)
- 2009
- All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. ~ Wilfred Owen (died 4 November 1918)
- 2010
- People often ask me, "Will, where do you get your jokes?" I just tell 'em, 'Well, I watch the government and report the facts, that is all I do, and I don't even find it necessary to exaggerate. ~ Will Rogers
- 2011
- Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, — knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags. ~ Wilfred Owen (90th anniversary of death)
- 2012
The battle for the airwaves cannot be limited to only those who have the bank accounts to pay for the battle and win it. Democracy is in danger. Seats in Congress, seats in the state legislature, that big seat in the White House itself, can be purchased by those who have the greatest campaign resources, who have the largest bank accounts or own riches. That, I submit to you, is no democracy. It is an oligarchy of the already powerful.
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~ Walter Cronkite ~
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- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- proposed by Kalki for the US opening date of the film based upon the character.
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
In the present stages of spiritual experience, the believer's interior comfort, and his exterior lustre, greatly depend on the position of his heart toward the uncreated sun of righteousness. How obscure and benighted are our views, and how languid our exercise of grace, when an unbelieving, a worldly, or a careless spirit, interrupts our walk with God! But, if the out-goings of our souls are to him, and if the in-pourings of his blessed influence be felt, we glow, we kindle, we burn, we shine.
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~ Augustus Toplady ~
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- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- America has spoken, and I'm humbled by the trust and the confidence of my fellow citizens. ~ George W. Bush
- 2005
- I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. ~ Will Durant (born 5 November 1885)
- 2006
- Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty. ~ Will Durant
- 2007
- Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
~ Traditional rhyme for Guy Fawkes Night. ~
- 2008
- I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:
(i) this is worthless nonsense;
(ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
(iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
(iv) I always said so.
~ J. B. S. Haldane (born 5 November 1892)
- 2009
- Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ~ Eugene V. Debs (born 5 November 1855)
- 2010
- I may not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything that I do not think. I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets. ~ Eugene V. Debs
- 2011
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded.
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- proposed by Kalki, for the date of V's anarchistic direct action against a fascist state, in the film, and in the source writings.
- 2016
Love one another. My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus. You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. If you take an attitude of love toward everybody you meet, you'll eventually get along.
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~ Will Durant ~
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- 2017
If the average man had had his way there would probably never have been any state. Even today he resents it, classes death with taxes, and yearns for that government which governs least. If he asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous. In the simplest societies there is hardly any government.
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~ Will Durant ~
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- 2018
It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past; often your face is your autobiography; you are what you are because of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations; because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country, and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without it.
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~ Will Durant ~
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- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
Science tells us how to heal and how to kill; it reduces the death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in war; but only wisdom — desire coordinated in the light of all experience — can tell us when to heal and when to kill. To observe processes and to construct means is science; to criticize and coordinate ends is philosophy: and because in these days our means and instruments have multiplied beyond our interpretation and synthesis of ideals and ends, our life is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. For a fact is nothing except in relation to desire; it is not complete except in relation to a purpose and a whole. Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
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~ Will Durant ~
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- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made. ~ Jean Giraudoux
- 2005
- An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. ~ Mohandas Gandhi (arrested 6 November 1913 while leading an Indian miners' march)
- 2006
- Me, I shall be an autocrat: that is my trade; and The Good God will forgive me: that is His. ~ Catherine the Great (died 6 November 1796)
- 2007
- I don’t think that combat has ever been written about truthfully; it has always been described in terms of bravery and cowardice. I won’t even accept these words as terms of human reference any more. And anyway, hell, they don’t even apply to what, in actual fact, modern warfare has become. ~ James Jones
- 2008
- This is our time — to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can! ~ Barack Obama (recent election to be 44th President of USA).
- 2009
- A man or woman is seldom happy unless he or she is sustaining him or herself and making a contribution to others. ~ Zig Ziglar
- 2010
- The appearance of a single great genius is more than equivalent to the birth of a hundred mediocrities. ~ Cesare Lombroso
- 2011
- If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere. ~ Zig Ziglar
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
Go so far as you can see and when you get there you will always be able to see farther. … as you head toward your goals, be prepared to make some slight adjustments to your course. You don't change your decision to go — you do change your direction to get there.
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~ Zig Ziglar ~
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- 2016
- 2017
- proposed by Kalki (for the date of Kyd's baptism — birthdate unknown)
- 2018
- proposed by Kalki, for election day 2018 in the USA.
- 2019
I'm an American, and always will be. I happen to love that big, awkward, sprawling country very much — and its big, awkward, sprawling people. Anyway, I don't like politics; and I don't make "political gestures" … I don't even believe in politics. To me, politics is like one of those annoying, and potentially dangerous (but generally just painful) chronic diseases that you just have to put up with in your life if you happen to have contracted it. Politics is like having diabetes. It's a science, a catch-as-catch-can science, which has grown up out of simple animal necessity more than anything else. If I were twice as big as I am, and twice as physically strong, I think I'd be a total anarchist.
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~ James Jones ~
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- 2020
The presidency itself is not a partisan institution. It’s the one office in this nation that represents everyone and it demands a duty of care for all Americans. That is precisely what I will do. I will work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as I will for those who did vote for me. Now, every vote must be counted. No one’s going to take our democracy away from us, not now, not ever. America’s come too far. America’s fought too many battles. America’s endured too much to ever let that happen. We the people will not be silenced. We the people will not be bullied. We the people will not surrender. My friends, I’m confident we’ll emerge victorious. But this will not be my victory alone or our victory alone. It’ll be a victory for the American people, for our democracy, for America.
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~ Joe Biden ~
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- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
As we speak, the world feels more unstable and more dangerous than it has in a very long time. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine continues to challenge the international order. This summer delivered record breaking temperatures across the planet, with an uptick in drought and flooding and wildfires. Right here in America, but also around the world, we’ve seen a continued assault on democratic norms, escalating political polarization, a lot of it fueled by a steady stream of misinformation, and bile on social media. And of course, over the last few weeks, we have watched a deadly struggle unfold in the Middle East, triggered by the horrific murder of more than 1,400 mostly civilian Israelis, many of them children, at the hands of Hamas, as well as the abduction of over 200 hostages; and then an Israeli response that has so far resulted in the displacement of well over a million people, the death of at least 9,000 Palestinian civilians, thousands of them also children, the cutoff of water, food, electricity to a captive population that risks creating an even greater humanitarian crisis. And all of this is taking place against the backdrop of decades of failure to achieve a durable peace for both Israelis and Palestinians, one that is based on genuine security for Israel, a recognition of its right to exist, and a peace that is based on an end of the occupation and the creation of a viable state and self-determination for the Palestinian people. I will admit it is impossible to be dispassionate in the face of this carnage. It is hard to feel hopeful. The images of families mourning, of bodies being pulled from rubble force a moral reckoning on all of us. … And yet, as heartbreaking as the news is right now — and it is heartbreaking — as daunting as all the challenges that we face may be, I stand here convinced that it is within our power, or more specifically within your power to make this world better.
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~ Barack Obama ~
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- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2003
- Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. ~ Anaïs Nin
- 2004
- Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do. ~ Wendell Berry
- 2005
- I found a book on how to be invisible —
On the edge of the labyrinth —
Under a veil you must never lift —
Pages you must never turn —
In the Labyrinth.
~ Kate Bush in "How to Be Invisible" on Aerial
- proposed by Kalki (Aerial, Bush's first album in 12 years, was released internationally on 7 November 2005)
- 2006
- The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness. ~ Albert Camus
- 2007
- Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. ~ Albert Camus
- 2008
- Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names ...Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade. ~ R. A. Lafferty (born 7 November 1914)
- 2009
- Political progress will only take place if sufficient security exists. ~ David Petraeus
- 2010
- All systems of morality are based on the idea that an action has consequences that legitimize or cancel it. A mind imbued with the absurd merely judges that those consequences must be considered calmly. It is ready to pay up. In other words, there may be responsible persons, but there are no guilty ones, in its opinion. At very most, such a mind will consent to use past experience as a basis for its future actions. ~ Albert Camus
- 2011
- Death is for a long time. Those of shallow thought say that it is forever. There is, at least, a long night of it. There is the forgetfulness and the loss of identity. The spirit, even as the body, is unstrung and burst and scattered. One goes down to death, and it leaves a mark on one forever. ~ R. A. Lafferty
- 2012
I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me — that I understand. And these two certainties — my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle — I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions?
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~ Albert Camus ~
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- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
All the final answers were given in the beginning. They stand shining, above and beyond us, but they are always there to be seen. They may be too bright for us, they may be too clear for us. Well then, we must clarify our own eyes. Our task is to grow out until we reach them.
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~ R. A. Lafferty ~
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- 2018
- 2019
This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. For if I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers. I can sketch one by one all the aspects it is able to assume, all those likewise that have been attributed to it, this upbringing, this origin, this ardor or these silences, this nobility or this vileness. But aspects cannot be added up. This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself.
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~ Albert Camus ~
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- 2020
- 2021
I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery also has its beauty. Neither do I believe that the spirit of adventure runs any risk of disappearing in our world. If I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity.
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~ Marie Curie ~
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- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny. And anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. At the same time, in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign — the fight: the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.
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~ Kamala Harris ~
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- proposed by Kalki; recent remarks on the recent elections.
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- It took a couple of hundred million years to develop a thinking ape and you want a smart one in a lousy few hundred thousand? ~ Spider Robinson
- 2005
- Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. ~ John F. Kennedy (elected U.S. President 8 November 1960)
- 2006
- No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. ~ Bram Stoker (born 8 November 1847)
- 2007
- The important thing
is to pull yourself up by your own hair
to turn yourself inside out
and see the whole world with fresh eyes.
~ Peter Weiss ~
- 2008
Once and for all
the idea of glorious victories
won by the glorious army
must be wiped out
Neither side is glorious
On either side they're just frightened men messing their pants
and they all want the same thing
Not to lie under the earth
but to walk upon it
without crutches
~ Peter Weiss ~ (born November 8, 1916)
- 2009
- Charity keepeth us in Faith and Hope, and Hope leadeth us in Charity. And in the end all shall be Charity. ~ Julian of Norwich
- 2010
- He that made all things for love, by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep them without end. ~ Julian of Norwich
- 2011
- Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success! ~ Bram Stoker
- 2012
If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me. But this was shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love.
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~ Julian of Norwich ~
|
- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
Mercy is a sweet gracious working in love, mingled with plenteous pity: for mercy worketh in keeping us, and mercy worketh turning to us all things to good. Mercy, by love, suffereth us to fail in measure and in as much as we fail, in so much we fall; and in as much as we fall, in so much we die: for it needs must be that we die in so much as we fail of the sight and feeling of God that is our life. Our failing is dreadful, our falling is shameful, and our dying is sorrowful: but in all this the sweet eye of pity and love is lifted never off us, nor the working of mercy ceaseth. For I beheld the property of mercy, and I beheld the property of grace: which have two manners of working in one love.
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~ Julian of Norwich ~
|
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
It is sooth that sin is cause of all this pain; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. These words were said full tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any that shall be saved. Then were it a great unkindness to blame or wonder on God for my sin, since He blameth not me for sin. And in these words I saw a marvellous high mystery hid in God, which mystery He shall openly make known to us in Heaven: in which knowing we shall verily see the cause why He suffered sin to come. In which sight we shall endlessly joy in our Lord God.
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~ Julian of Norwich ~
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- 2020
- 2021
Truth seeth God, and Wisdom beholdeth God, and of these two cometh the third: that is, a holy marvellous delight in God; which is Love. Where Truth and Wisdom are verily, there is Love verily, coming of them both. And all of God’s making: for He is endless sovereign Truth, endless sovereign Wisdom, endless sovereign Love, unmade; and man’s Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties made, and evermore it doeth that it was made for: it seeth God, it beholdeth God, and it loveth God. Whereof God enjoyeth in the creature; and the creature in God, endlessly marvelling.
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~ Julian of Norwich ~
|
- 2022
- 2023
When I saw that God doeth all that is done, I saw no sin: and then I saw that all is well. But when God shewed me for sin, then said He: All SHALL be well.
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~ Julian of Norwich ~
|
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- "The time has come", the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages — and Kings —
And why the Sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings."
~ Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass ~
- 2005
- If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. ~ Carl Sagan (born 9 November 1934)
- 2006
- Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism. ~ Carl Sagan
- 2007
- To love another is something
like prayer and it can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief. ~
~ Anne Sexton ~
- 2008
- Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. ~ Carl Sagan
- 2009
- History is full of people who out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power have destroyed knowledge of immeasurable value which truly belongs to us all. We must not let it happen again. ~ Carl Sagan
- 2010
- I had an experience... I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever... A vision of the universe that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how … rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not — that none of us — are alone! … I wish I could share that. I wish, that everyone, if only for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and hope. But … that continues to be my wish. ~ "Ellie Arroway" in Contact based on the novel by Carl Sagan
- 2011
- Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive. ~ Carl Sagan
- 2012
The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.
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~ Carl Sagan ~
|
- 2013
- 2014
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.
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~ Carl Sagan ~
|
- 2015
- 2016
We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads — but to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate — but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths, of exquisite interrelationships, of the awesome machinery of nature. The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we've learned most of what we know. Recently we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
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~ Carl Sagan ~
|
- 2017
- 2018
Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours and every one of them is a succession of incidents, events, occurrences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history, what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants, it is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity we could plunge our world into a time of darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilisation and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet.
|
~ Carl Sagan ~
|
- 2019
We are star stuff, which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The loom of time and space works the most astonishing transformations of matter. Our own planet is only a tiny part of the vast cosmic tapestry, a starry fabric of worlds yet untold. Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours. In every one of them there’s a succession of incidents, events, occurrences, which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time, and our small planet at this moment — here we face a critical branch point in history. What we do with our world, right now will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate a superstition or greed or stupidity, we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet, to enhance enormously our understanding of the universe and to carry us to the stars.
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~ Carl Sagan ~
|
- 2020
We stand again at an inflection point. We have the opportunity to defeat despair and to build a nation of prosperity and purpose. We can do it. I know we can. I've long talked about the battle for the soul of America. We must restore the soul of America. Our nation is shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses. It is time for our better angels to prevail. Tonight, the whole world is watching America. I believe at our best America is a beacon for the globe. And we lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.
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~ Joe Biden ~
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- 2021
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The loom of time and space works the most astonishing transformations of matter. Our own planet is only a tiny part of the vast cosmic tapestry, a starry fabric of worlds yet untold. Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours. In every one of them there's a succession of incidents, events, occurrences, which influence its future.
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~ Carl Sagan ~
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- 2022
It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.
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~ Carl Sagan ~
|
- 2023
It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas … If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you … On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.
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~ Carl Sagan ~
|
- 2024
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life… There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
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~ Carl Sagan ~
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- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- When war is declared, truth is the first casualty. ~ Arthur Ponsonby
- 2005
- We are always living in the final days. What have you got? A hundred years or much, much less until the end of your world. ~ Neil Gaiman (born 10 November 1960)
- 2006
- Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom. ~ Friedrich Schiller (born 10 November 1759)
- 2007
- There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous. ~ "Mr. Wednesday" in American Gods by Neil Gaiman
- 2008
The dignity of mankind is in your hands; protect it!
It sinks with you! With you it will ascend.
~ Friedrich Schiller ~
- 2009
- He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times. ~ Friedrich Schiller
- 2010
- Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays. ~ Friedrich Schiller
- 2011
- All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world: our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end. ~ Neil Gaiman in American Gods
- 2012
- 2013
Dare to be wise! Energy and spirit is needed to overcome the obstacles which indolence of nature as well as cowardice of heart oppose to our instruction. It is not without significance that the old myth makes the goddess of Wisdom emerge fully armed from the head of Jupiter; for her very first function is warlike. Even in her birth she has to maintain a hard struggle with the senses, which do not want to be dragged from their sweet repose. The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error. Content if they themselves escape the hard labor of thought, men gladly resign to others the guardianship of their ideas, and if it happens that higher needs are stirred in them, they embrace with a eager faith the formulas which State and priesthood hold in readiness for such an occasion.
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~ Friedrich Schiller ~
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- 2014
It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one simply assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best.
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~ Neil Gaiman ~ in ~ The Sandman ~
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- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
The world doesn’t have to be like this. Things can be different. … Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you’ve never been. Once you’ve visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.
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~ Neil Gaiman ~
|
- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- All the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind. ~ Kurt Vonnegut (born 11 November 1922)
- 2005
- Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains that victory. ~ George S. Patton, (born 11 November 1885)
- 2006
- We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
~ John McCrae ~
- proposed by IP 65.110.28.123
- 2007
- A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
- 2008
- These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. ~ Abigail Adams
- 2009
- Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
- 2010
- 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. I have seen it in such full perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall make some slips no doubt, and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long: the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me. Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand years! Do you know, at first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them, but that was a mistake — that was my first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I was lying, and preserved me and corrected me. But how establish paradise — I don't know, because I do not know how to put it into words. After my dream I lost command of words. All the chief words, anyway, the most necessary ones. But never mind, I shall go and I shall keep talking, I won't leave off, for anyway I have seen it with my own eyes, though I cannot describe what I saw. But the scoffers do not understand that. It was a dream, they say, delirium, hallucination. Oh! As though that meant so much! And they are so proud! A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times — but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
- 2011
- There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
- 2012
I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativism is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it.
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~ Kurt Vonnegut ~
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- 2013
- 2014
About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves "Freethinkers," which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, "If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?" I myself have written, "If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."
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~ Kurt Vonnegut ~
|
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all. But what's the use of talking! I suspect that all I'm saying now is so like the usual commonplaces that I shall certainly be taken for a lower-form schoolboy sending in his essay on "sunrise", or they'll say perhaps that I had something to say, but that I did not know how to "explain" it. But I'll add, that there is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas.
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~ Fyodor Dostoevsky ~
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- 2018
All the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
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~ Kurt Vonnegut ~
|
- proposed by Kalki; This was used once before, 14 years ago, in 2004, as the first QOTD for this date, but it is probably even more appropriate to use once again, on this centennial of that historical event of 1918.
- 2019
- 2020
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
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~ John McCrae ~
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- 2021
Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery. If there’s the hundredth part of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that leads to trouble. But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all stages of development and classes of society.
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~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky ~ in ~ Crime and Punishment ~
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- 2022
- proposed by Kalki; in regard of Armistice Day/Veteran's Day/Rememberance Day — one of Kipling's epitaphs regarding various archetypal figures of World War I.
- 2023
Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
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~ Kurt Vonnegut ~
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- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2003
- The Enlightened take things Lightly. ~ Principia Discordia
- 2004
- Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time. ~ Thomas Carlyle
- 2005
- Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements. ~ Bahá'u'lláh (born 12 November 1817)
- 2006
- No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency they must know something of the laws of navigation. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton (born 12 November 1815)
- 2007
- We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time. We plow through fields of magnetism. Past and future come together on thunderheads and our dead hearts live with lightning in the wounds of the Gods. ~ Norman Mailer (recent death)
- 2008
- In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton
- 2009
- It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. ~ Bahá'u'lláh (date of birth)
- 2010
- If the learned and worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind to inhale the fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding heart would apprehend the meaning of true liberty, and discover the secret of undisturbed peace and absolute composure. ~ Bahá'u'lláh
- 2011
- A law of nature is not a formula drawn up by a legislator, but a mere summary of the observed facts — a "bundle of facts." Things do not act in a particular way because there is a law, but we state the "law" because they act in that way. ~ Joseph McCabe
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
Man is the supreme Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess. Through a word proceeding out of the mouth of God he was called into being; by one word more he was guided to recognize the Source of his education; by yet another word his station and destiny were safeguarded. The Great Being saith: Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.
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~ Bahá'u'lláh ~
|
- 2016
- proposed by Kalki in response to his recent death.
- 2017
- 2018
The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's Great Peace amongst men.
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~ Bahá'u'lláh ~
|
- 2019
When the true lover and devoted friend reacheth to the presence of the Beloved, the sparkling beauty of the Loved One and the fire of the lover’s heart will kindle a blaze and burn away all veils and wrappings. Yea, all he hath, from heart to skin, will be set aflame, so that nothing will remain save the Friend. He who hath attained this station is sanctified from all that pertaineth to the world. Wherefore, if those who have come to the sea of His presence are found to possess none of the limited things of this perishable world, whether it be outer wealth or personal opinions, it mattereth not. For whatever the creatures have is limited by their own limits, and whatever the True One hath is sanctified therefrom; this utterance must be deeply pondered that its purport may be clear.
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~ Bahá'u'lláh ~
|
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
Once you have acquired the skills, you must test them on an opponent, but in no way should you consider victory or submission to be a cause for shame or pride. Rather, you ought to think, "By what means did I defeat him?" Or, "By what means could I have defeated him?" Then you exert and test yourself for a while.
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~ Qi Jiguang ~
|
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- Anyone who believes in God and the Last Day should not harm his neighbor. Anyone who believes in God and the Last Day should entertain his guest generously. And anyone who believes in God and the Last Day should say what is good or keep quiet. ~ Muhammad
- 2005
- Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good. ~ Augustine of Hippo, (born 13 November 354)
- 2006
- The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. ~ Louis Brandeis (born November 13, 1856)
- 2007
- To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
- 2008
- Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. ~ Louis Brandeis
- 2009
- It is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself! ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
- 2010
- The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but — what is worse — the slave of as many masters as he has vices. ~ Augustine of Hippo
- 2011
- Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul. ~ Augustine of Hippo
- 2012
I do not fear but that He will go on to supply what is yet wanting when once I have begun to use what He has already given. For a possession which is not diminished by being shared with there, if it is possessed and not shared, is not yet possessed as it ought to be possessed.
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~ Augustine of Hippo ~
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- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- proposed by Kalki in regard to his recent death.
- 2019
- 2020
Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.
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~ Augustine of Hippo ~
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- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2003
- The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. ~ George Eliot
- 2004
- If I want to understand something, I must observe, I must not criticize, I must not condemn, I must not pursue it as pleasure or avoid it as non-pleasure. There must merely be the silent observation of a fact. ~ J. Krishnamurti
- 2005
- The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru (born 14 November 1889)
- 2006
- Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru
- 2007
- A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru (date of birth)
- 2008
- To be in good moral condition requires at least as much training as to be in good physical condition. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru
- 2009
- Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. ~ Herman Melville in Moby-Dick ~ (published that day in the United States in 1851; but first published on October 18 in England).
- 2010
- The world of today has achieved much, but for all its declared love for humanity, it has based itself far more on hatred and violence than on the virtues that make one human. War is the negation of truth and humanity. War may be unavoidable sometimes, but its progeny are terrible to contemplate. Not mere killing, for man must die, but the deliberate and persistent propagation of hatred and falsehood, which gradually become the normal habits of the people. It is dangerous and harmful to be guided in our life's course by hatreds and aversions, for they are wasteful of energy and limit and twist the mind and prevent it from perceiving truth. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru
- 2011
- Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. It is never a narrowing of the mind or a restriction of the human spirit or the country's spirit. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru
- 2012
- 2013
Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.
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~ Jawaharlal Nehru ~
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- 2014
Even if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him, so Voltaire said … Perhaps that is true, and indeed the mind of man has always been fashioning some such mental image or conception which grew with the mind's growth. But there is something also in the reverse proposition: even if God exist, it may be desirable not to look up to Him or to rely upon Him. Too much dependence on supernatural forces may lead, and has often led, to loss of self-reliance in man, and to a blunting of his capacity and creative ability. And yet some faith seems necessary in things of the spirit which are beyond the scope of our physical world, some reliance on moral, spiritual, and idealistic conceptions, or else we have no anchorage, no objectives or purpose in life. Whether we believe in God or not, it is impossible not to believe in something, whether we call it a creative life-giving force, or vital energy inherent in matter which gives it its capacity for self-movement and change and growth, or by some other name, something that is as real, though elusive, as life is real when contrasted with death.
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~ Jawaharlal Nehru ~
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- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
We talk about a secular state in India. It is perhaps not very easy even to find a good word in Hindi for "secular". Some people think it means something opposed to religion. That obviously is not correct. What it means is that it is state which honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities; that, as a state, it does not allow itself to be attached to one faith or religion, which then becomes the state religion.
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~ Jawaharlal Nehru ~
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- 2019
- 2020
We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Tao. What I now realize, from my study of the different religious traditions, is that a disciplined attempt to go beyond the ego brings about a state of ecstasy. Indeed, it is in itself ekstasis. Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, or self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.
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~ Karen Armstrong ~
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- 2021
- 2022
The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology. Compassion was the litmus test for the prophets of Israel, for the rabbis of the Talmud, for Jesus, for Paul, and for Muhammad, not to mention Confucius, Lao-tsu, the Buddha, or the sages of the Upanishads.
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~ Karen Armstrong ~
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- 2023
- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- Every now and then a clear harmonic cry gave new suggestions of a tune that would someday be the only tune in the world and would raise men's souls to joy. ~ Jack Kerouac in On The Road
- 2005
- Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.
~ William Cowper (born 15 November 1731 (O.S.), but actually 26 November by modern Gregorian reckoning.)
- 2006
- He who, when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth, tells it boldly and has done is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice and never ceases nibbling. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater (born 15 November 1741)
- 2007
- The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.
~ Marianne Moore~ (born 15 November 1887)
- 2008
- Who in the same given time can produce more than others has vigor; who can produce more and better, has talents; who can produce what none else can, has genius. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater
- 2009
- Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas. ~ Erwin Rommel
- 2010
- A phrase begins life as a literary expression; its felicity leads to its lazy repetition; and repetition soon establishes it as a legal formula, undiscriminatingly used to express different and sometimes contradictory ideas. ~ Felix Frankfurter
- 2011
- We need not think alike to love alike. ~ Ferenc Dávid (died 15 November 1579, date of birth unknown )
- 2012
Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.
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~ Felix Frankfurter ~
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- 2013
I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me — shapes and ideas so near to me — so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.
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~ Georgia O'Keeffe ~
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- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. ~ Jimi Hendrix
- 2005
- From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen. ~ Robert Nozick, (born 16 November 1938)
- 2006
- We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is ourself against ourselves. ~ Alan Watts (died 16 November 1973)
- 2007
- We must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy or quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, that we are only six percent of the world's population, that we cannot impose our will upon the other ninety-four percent of mankind, that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem. ~ John F. Kennedy, (Speech made on 16 November 1961)
- 2008
- You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the egret perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break. ~ Chinua Achebe (born 16 November 1930)
- 2009
- There is plenty of room at the top because very few people care to travel beyond the average route. And so most of us seem satisfied to remain within the confines of mediocrity. ~ Nnamdi Azikiwe
- 2010
- There will not be one kind of community existing and one kind of life led in utopia. Utopia will consist of utopias, of many different and divergent communities in which people lead different kinds of lives under different institutions. Some kinds of communities will be more attractive to most than others; communities will wax and wane. People will leave some for others or spend their whole lives in one. Utopia is a framework for utopias, a place where people are at liberty to join together voluntarily to pursue and attempt to realize their own vision of the good life in the ideal community but where no one can impose his own utopian vision upon others. ~ Robert Nozick
- 2011
- Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without a state, but that any state necessarily violates people's moral rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral. Moral philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus. ~ Robert Nozick
- 2012
Utopia is a meta-utopia: the environment in which Utopian experiments may be tried out; the environment in which people are free to do their own thing; the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular Utopian visions are to be realized stably.
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~ Robert Nozick ~
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- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
Wittgenstein, Elizabeth Taylor, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Merton, Yogi Berra, Allen Ginsberg, Harry Wolfson, Thoreau, Casey Stengel, The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Picasso, Moses, Einstein, Hugh Hefner, Socrates, Henry Ford, Lenny Bruce, Baba Ram Dass, Gandhi, Sir Edmund Hillary, Raymond Lubitz, Buddha, Frank Sinatra, Columbus, Freud, Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand, Baron Rothschild, Ted Williams, Thomas Edison, H.L. Mencken, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Ellison, Bobby Fischer, Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, you, and your parents. Is there really one kind of life which is best for each of these people?
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~ Robert Nozick ~
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- 2017
One persistent strand in utopian thinking, as we have often mentioned, is the feeling that there is some set of principles obvious enough to be accepted by all men of good will, precise enough to give unambiguous guidance in particular situations, clear enough so that all will realize its dictates, and complete enough to cover all problems which actually arise. Since I do not assume that there are such principles, I do not presume that the political realm will whither away. The messiness of the details of a political apparatus and the details of how it is to be controlled and limited do not fit easily into one's hopes for a sleek, simple utopian scheme.
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~ Robert Nozick ~
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- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
Nobody performs her or his duties. Governments do not, because they do not know, they are not able or they do not wish, or because they are not permitted by those who effectively govern the world: The multinational and pluricontinental companies whose power — absolutely non-democratic — reduce to next to nothing what is left of the ideal of democracy. We citizens are not fulfilling our duties either. Let us think that no human rights will exist without symmetry of the duties that correspond to them. It is not to be expected that governments in the next 50 years will do it. Let us common citizens therefore speak up. With the same vehemence as when we demanded our rights, let us demand responsibility over our duties. Perhaps the world could turn a little better.
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~ José Saramago ~
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- 2021
You can't satisfy everybody; especially if there are those who will be dissatisfied unless not everybody is satisfied.
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~ Robert Nozick ~
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- 2022
- proposed by Kalki; stanzas of "To the Moon", in regard of the Artemis I lunar mission scheduled to launch early in the morning on this date.
- 2023
This week we saw the horrible images and stories from Israel and Gaza, and I know what you're thinking: "Who better to comment on it than Pete Davidson?" Well, in a lot of ways, I am a good person to talk about it because when I was seven years old, my dad was killed in a terrorist attack. So I know something about what that's like. I saw so many terrible pictures this week of children suffering — Israeli children and Palestinian children. And It took me back to a really horrible, horrible place. No one in this world deserves to suffer like that, especially not kids, ya know? … My heart is with everyone whose lives have been destroyed this week. But tonight, I'm gonna do what I've always done in the face of tragedy, and that's try to be funny. Remember, I said TRY.
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~ Pete Davidson ~
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- 2024
Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical, stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth. We say to the confused, Know thyself, as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations, we say to the apathetic, Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head, we say to the indecisive, Begin at the beginning, as if that beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and that all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarled to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skien, or indeed, if we may be permitted on more stock phrase, in the skien of life. … These are the delusions of the pure and unprepared, the beginning is never the clear, precise end of a thread, the beginning is a long, painfully slow process that requires time and patience in order to find out in which direction it is heading, a process that feels its way along the path ahead like a blind man, the beginning is just the beginning, what came before is nigh on worthless.
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~ José Saramago ~
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- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2003
- A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. ~ Frank Herbert in Dune
- 2004
- There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. ~ Henry David Thoreau
- 2005
- It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and if it does, then only temporarily. ~ Martin Scorsese (born 17 November 1942)
- 2006
- Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. ~ Milton Friedman (recent death)
- 2007
- The paramount question of the day is not political, is not religious, but is economic. The crying-out demand of today is for a circle of principles that shall forever make it impossible for one man to control another by controlling the means of his existence. ~ Voltairine de Cleyre
- 2008
- When you can have anything you want by uttering a few words, the goal matters not, only the journey to it. ~ Christopher Paolini
- 2009
- What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through. ~ Voltairine de Cleyre
- 2010
- Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license"; and they will define and define freedom out of existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. ~ Voltairine de Cleyre
- 2011
- Let us have Men, Men who will say a word to their souls and keep it — keep it not when it is easy, but keep it when it is hard — keep it when the storm roars and there is a white-streaked sky and blue thunder before, and one's eyes are blinded and one's ears deafened with the war of opposing things; and keep it under the long leaden sky and the gray dreariness that never lifts. Hold unto the last: that is what it means to have a Dominant Idea, which Circumstance cannot break. And such men make and unmake Circumstance. ~ Voltairine de Cleyre
- 2012
Miss Goldman is a communist; I am an individualist. She wishes to destroy the right of property, I wish to assert it. I make my war upon privilege and authority, whereby the right of property, the true right in that which is proper to the individual, is annihilated. She believes that co-operation would entirely supplant competition; I hold that competition in one form or another will always exist, and that it is highly desirable it should. But whether she or I be right, or both of us be wrong, of one thing I am sure; the spirit which animates Emma Goldman is the only one which will emancipate the slave from his slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny — the spirit which is willing to dare and suffer.
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~ Voltairine de Cleyre ~
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- 2013
- 2014
In everything that lives, if one looks searchingly, is limned the shadow line of an idea — an idea, dead or living, sometimes stronger when dead, with rigid, unswerving lines that mark the living embodiment with the stern immobile cast of the non-living. Daily we move among these unyielding shadows, less pierceable, more enduring than granite, with the blackness of ages in them, dominating living, changing bodies, with dead, unchanging souls. And we meet, also, living souls dominating dying bodies — living ideas regnant over decay and death.
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~ Voltairine de Cleyre ~
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- 2015
As to the American tradition of non-meddling, Anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself. It demands no jealous barrier of isolation; it knows that such isolation is undesirable and impossible; but it teaches that by all men's strictly minding their own business, a fluid society, freely adapting itself to mutual needs, wherein all the world shall belong to all men, as much as each has need or desire, will result. And when Modern Revolution has thus been carried to the heart of the whole world — if it ever shall be, as I hope it will — then may we hope to see a resurrection of that proud spirit of our fathers which put the simple dignity of Man above the gauds of wealth and class, and held that to be an American was greater than to be a king. In that day there shall be neither kings nor Americans — only Men; over the whole earth, MEN.
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~ Voltairine de Cleyre ~
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- 2016
Those who, by the essence of their belief, are committed to Direct Action only are — just who? Why, the non-resistants; precisely those who do not believe in violence at all! Now do not make the mistake of inferring that I say direct action means non-resistance; not by any means. Direct action may be the extreme of violence, or it may be as peaceful as the waters of the Brook of Siloa that go softly. What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through.
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~ Voltairine de Cleyre ~
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- 2017
Note the difference between a right and a privilege. A right, in the abstract, is a fact; it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred; it is. Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never. Privilege, in the abstract, does not exist; there is no such thing. Rights recognized, privilege is destroyed. But, in the practical, the moment you admit a supreme authority, you have denied rights. Practically the supremacy has all the rights, and no matter what the human race possesses, it does so merely at the caprice of that authority.
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~ Voltairine de Cleyre ~
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- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
I paint a gradual slipping out of the now, to that beautiful then, where there are neither kings, presidents, landlords, national bankers, stockbrokers, railroad magnates, patentright monopolists, or tax and title collectors; where there are no over-stocked markets or hungry children, idle counters and naked creatures, splendor and misery, waste and need. I am told this is farfetched idealism, to paint this happy, povertyless, crimeless, diseaseless world; I have been told I "ought to be behind the bars" for it. Remarks of that kind rather destroy the white streak of faith. I lose confidence in the slipping process, and am forced to believe that the rulers of the earth are sowing a fearful wind, to reap a most terrible whirlwind. When I look at this poor, bleeding, wounded World, this world that has suffered so long, struggled so much, been scourged so fiercely, thorn-pierced so deeply, crucified so cruelly, I can only shake my head and remember: The giant is blind, but he's thinking: and his locks are growing, fast.
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~ Voltairine de Cleyre ~
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- 2021
- 2022
The Puritans had accused the Quakers of "troubling the world by preaching peace to it." They refused to pay church taxes; they refused to bear arms; they refused to swear allegiance to any government. (In so doing they were direct actionists, what we may call negative direct actionists.) So the Puritans, being political actionists, passed laws to keep them out, to deport, to fine, to imprison, to mutilate, and finally, to hang them. And the Quakers just kept on coming (which was positive direct action); and history records that after the hanging of four Quakers, and the flogging of Margaret Brewster at the cart's tail through the streets of Boston, "the Puritans gave up trying to silence the new missionaries"; that "Quaker persistence and Quaker non-resistance had won the day.
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~ Voltairine de Cleyre ~
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- 2023
I never thought I could feel this way And I've got to say that I just don't get it. I don't know where we went wrong, But the feeling's gone And I just can't get it back.
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~ Gordon Lightfoot ~
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- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation. ~ James Thurber
- 2005
- We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings. ~ Alan Moore in Watchmen (born 18 November 1953)
- 2006
- It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off. ~ Margaret Atwood (born 18 November 1939)
- 2007
- Whatever the scientists may come up with, writers and artists will continue to portray altered mental states, simply because few aspects of our nature fascinate people so much. The so-called mad person will always represent a possible future for every member of the audience — who knows when such a malady may strike? ~ Margaret Atwood
- 2008
- War is what happens when language fails. ~ Margaret Atwood
- 2009
- A lot of being a poet consists of willed ignorance. If you woke up from your trance and realized the nature of the life-threatening and dignity-destroying precipice you were walking along, you would switch into actuarial sciences immediately. ~ Margaret Atwood (born November 18, 1939)
- 2010
- Ideas, unlike solid structures, do not perish. They remain immortal, immaterial and everywhere, like all Divine things. Ideas are a golden, savage landscape that we wander unaware, without a map. Be careful: in the last analysis, reality may be exactly what we think it is. ~ Alan Moore
- 2011
- There are people. There are stories. The people think they shape the stories, but the reverse is often closer to the truth. ~ Alan Moore
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
The world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from the another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away. Come... dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg. Come, dry your eyes. And let's go home.
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~ Alan Moore ~ in ~ Watchmen ~
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- 2015
Most people find the word "Apocalypse" to be a terrifying concept. Checked in the dictionary, it means only revelation, although it obviously has also come to mean end of the world. As to what the end of the world means, I would say that probably depends on what we mean by world. I don't think this means the planet, or even the life forms upon the planet. I think the world is purely a construction of ideas, and not just the physical structures, but the mental structures, the ideologies that we've erected, THAT is what I would call the world. Our political structures, philosophical structures, ideological frameworks, economies. These are actually imaginary things, and yet that is the framework that we have built our entire world upon. It strikes me that a strong enough wave of information could completely overturn and destroy all of that. A sudden realization that would change our entire perspective upon who we are and how we exist.
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~ Alan Moore ~
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- 2016
- 2017
There were a lot of utopias in the nineteenth century, wonderful societies that we might possibly construct. Those went pretty much out of fashion after World War I. And almost immediately one of the utopias that people were trying to construct, namely the Soviet Union, threw out a writer called Zamyatin who wrote a seminal book called We, which contains the seeds of Orwell and Huxley. Writers started doing dystopias after we saw the effects of trying to build utopias that required, unfortunately, the elimination of a lot of people before you could get to the perfect point, which never arrived. … I don’t believe in a perfect world. I don’t believe it’s achievable, and I believe the people who try to achieve it usually end up turning it into something like Cambodia or something very similar because purity tests set in. Are you ideologically pure enough to be allowed to live? Well, it turns out that very few people are, so you end up with a big powerful struggle and a mass killing scene.
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~ Margaret Atwood ~
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- 2018
I believe that all other political states are in fact variations or outgrowths of a basic state of anarchy; after all, when you mention the idea of anarchy to most people they will tell you what a bad idea it is because the biggest gang would just take over. Which is pretty much how I see contemporary society. We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation— that it is a capitalist or a communist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice.
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~ Alan Moore ~
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- 2019
- 2020
Anarchy means "without leaders", not "without order". With anarchy comes an age of ordnung, of true order, which is to say voluntary order... this age of ordung will begin when the mad and incoherent cycle of verwirrung that these bulletins reveal has run its course... This is not anarchy, Eve. This is chaos.
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~ Alan Moore ~ in ~ V for Vendetta ~
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- 2021
- 2022
I am in awe of the majestic miracle that is American democracy. As we participate in a hallmark of our republic — the peaceful, orderly transition from one Congress to the next — let us consider the words of, again, President Lincoln, spoken during one of America’s darkest hours. He called upon us to come together, to swell the chorus of the union, when once again touched as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature. That again is the task at hand. A new day is dawning on the horizon, and I look forward, always forward, to the unfolding story of our nation, a story of light and love, of patriotism and progress, of many becoming one. And always an unfinished mission to make the dreams of today the reality of tomorrow.
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~ Nancy Pelosi ~
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- proposed by Kalki; in regard of her decision to not to seek leadership position of the Democratic party in the US House of Representatives, in the next Congress.
- 2023
Whatever stage of development it may reach, China will never pursue hegemony or expansion, and will never impose its will on others. China does not seek spheres of influence, and will not fight a cold war or a hot war with anyone. … No matter how the global landscape evolves, the historical trend of peaceful coexistence between China and the United States will not change.
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~ Xi Jinping ~
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- proposed by Kalki; recent remarks while in the United States.
- 2024
While we labour to subdue our passions, we should take care not to extinguish them. Subduing our passions, is disengaging ourselves from the world; to which however, Whilst we reside in it, we must always bear relation; and we may detach ourselves to such a degree as to pass an useless and insipid life, which we were not meant to do. Our existence here is at least one part of a system. A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
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~ William Shenstone ~
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- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2003
- One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- 2004
- Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have. ~ Oprah Winfrey
- 2005
- In a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. ~ Abraham Lincoln, "Gettysburg Address" (delivered 19 November 1863)
- 2006
- Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~ (became Poet Laureate that day)
- 2007
- It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them. In this beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten and partisanship should be unknown. ~ James A. Garfield
- 2008
- Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained. ~ James A. Garfield
- 2009
- We should not mourn for men of high ideals. Rather we should rejoice that we had the privilege of having had them with us, to inspire us by their radiant personalities. ~ Indira Gandhi (born 19 November 1917)
- 2010
- Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis. ~ James A. Garfield
- 2011
I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty. ~ James A. Garfield
- 2012
Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence. Legitimate self-confidence is a winner. The true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open — to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source. Self-confident people aren't afraid to have their views challenged. They relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.
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~ Jack Welch ~
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- 2013
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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~ Abraham Lincoln ~
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- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
We do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our children will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies. They will surely bless their fathers and their fathers' God that the Union was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were made equal before the law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation. Is it not possible for us now to make a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its inevitable verdict? Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material well-being unite us and offer ample employment of our best powers. Let all our people, leaving behind them the battlefields of dead issues, move forward and in their strength of liberty and the restored Union win the grander victories of peace.
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~ James A. Garfield ~
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- 2019
You can, after all, reduce the reasons for watching TV to but two: to be lulled, and to be stimulated. Some people do one sometimes, the other sometimes. Some people do all of one or all of the other.
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~ Dick Cavett ~
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- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous. ~ Margot Fonteyn
- 2005
- The Truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is. ~ Nadine Gordimer (born 20 November 1923)
- 2006
- Art defies defeat by its very existence, representing the celebration of life, in spite of all attempts to degrade and destroy it. ~ Nadine Gordimer (date of birth)
- 2007
- Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly. … Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change. ~ Robert F. Kennedy (born 20 November 1925)
- 2008
- A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability. ~ Robert F. Kennedy
- 2009
- My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back I see a pattern. ~ Benoît Mandelbrot
- 2010
- An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in "inventing" something. It's an arrogance that some enjoy, and others do not. Now I reach beyond arrogance when I proclaim that fractals had been pictured forever but their true role remained unrecognized and waited for me to be uncovered. ~ Benoît Mandelbrot
- 2011
- For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself. ~ Benoît Mandelbrot
- 2012
- 2013
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
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~ Robert F. Kennedy ~
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- 2014
- 2015
When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered. We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.
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~ Robert F. Kennedy ~
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- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence. We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
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~ Robert F. Kennedy ~
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- 2019
If we would lead outside our borders, if we would help those who need our assistance, if we would meet our responsibilities to mankind, we must first, all of us, demolish the borders which history has erected between men within our own nations — barriers of race and religion, social class and ignorance. Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress. This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.
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~ Robert F. Kennedy ~
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- 2020
My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken. They have delivered us a clear victory. A convincing victory. A victory for "We the People." We have won with the most votes ever cast for a presidential ticket in the history of this nation — 74 million. I am humbled by the trust and confidence you have placed in me. I pledge to be a President who seeks not to divide, but to unify. Who doesn't see Red and Blue states, but a United States. And who will work with all my heart to win the confidence of the whole people. For that is what America is about: The people.
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~ Joe Biden ~
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- 2021
I believe the American people — the vast majority — are with us. I think they see much more clearly what you’ve all been fighting for your whole lives now. It’s in stark relief. The bad news: We had a President who appealed to the prejudice. The good news is that he took the — he ripped the Band-Aid off, made it absolutely clear what’s at stake. And I think the American people will follow us. But guess what? Whether they will or not, we have no choice. We have to continue to fight. God bless you all. May God protect our troops.
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~ Joe Biden ~
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- 2022
Democracy begins and will be preserved in we, the people’s, habits of heart, in our character: optimism that is tested yet endures, courage that digs deep when we need it, empathy that fuels democracy, the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans. Look, our democracy is imperfect. It always has been. … But history and common sense tell us that opportunity, liberty, and justice for all are most likely to come to pass in a democracy.
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~ Joe Biden ~
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- 2023
America reaches out all across the Pacific, building bridges mightier than the Golden Gate, spanning … more space and time than the great expanse that the water has. Bridges linking pride in our past. The immigrants and workers who sunk their sweat … in the foundations of this nation. And our hope for the future and the untold heights to which we're going to climb together. Bridges connecting diverse communities. All across the traditions, cultures, and languages, we find the common dreams we share for ourselves and for our children. Bridges that carry the ideas of entrepreneurs: "What if? Why not? What next?"… I'm looking forward to seeing all the progress we're going to make and all the bridges between our people we're going to continue to build in the months and years ahead.
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~ Joe Biden ~
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- 2024
There is a Chinese curse which says, "May he live in interesting times.” Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. And everyone here will ultimately be judged — will ultimately judge himself — on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.
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~ Robert F. Kennedy ~
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- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- Fame is something which must be won; honor is something which must not be lost. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
- 2005
- We must believe in free will — we have no choice. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer (born 21 November 1902 or 14 July 1904; uncertainties exist)
- 2006
- Man is free at the instant he wants to be. ~ Voltaire (date of birth)
- 2007
- It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him. ~ Voltaire
- 2008
- If your object is to secure liberty, you must learn to do without authority and compulsion. If you intend to live in peace and harmony with your fellow-men, you and they should cultivate brotherhood and respect for each other. If you want to work together with them for your mutual benefit, you must practice cooperation. The social revolution means much more than the reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishment of new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal; it means a different spirit in individual and collective life, and that spirit cannot be born overnight. It is a spirit to be cultivated, to be nurtured and reared, as the most delicate flower it is, for indeed it is the flower of a new and beautiful existence. ~ Alexander Berkman
- 2009
- Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day. There must be a way for man to attain all possible pleasures, all the powers and knowledge that nature can grant him, and still serve God — a God who speaks in deeds, not in words, and whose vocabulary is the Cosmos. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
- 2010
- "Man's inhumanity to man" is not the last word. The truth lies deeper. It is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep. ~ Alexander Berkman
- 2011
- I know as a writer how valuable a tool is the wastebasket. Perhaps God throws away many experiments before He finds the right expression. Perhaps we are the discards — or we could be the part He keeps. This mystery is what keeps us all going, to see what happens in the next chapter. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
- 2012
The principles of terrorism unavoidably rebound to the fatal injury of liberty and revolution. Absolute power corrupts and defeats its partisans no less than its opponents. A people that knows not liberty becomes accustomed to dictatorship: fighting despotism and counter-revolution, terrorism itself becomes their efficient school. Once on the road of terrorism, the State necessarily becomes estranged from the people.
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~ Alexander Berkman ~
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- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.
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~ Voltaire ~
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- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- I'd rather be a climbing ape than a falling angel. ~ Terry Pratchett
- 2005
- O may I join the choir invisible of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence; live in pulses stirred to generosity, in deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn for miserable aims that end with self, in thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, and with their mild persistence urge men's search to vaster issues. ~ George Eliot (born 22 November 1819)
- 2006
- What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other? ~ George Eliot
- 2007
- This is life to come, —
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
~ George Eliot ~
- 2008
- Human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty — it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it. ~ George Eliot
- 2009
- It is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium. ~ George Eliot
- 2010
- It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not. ~ André Gide
- 2011
- For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every sky has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously. ~ George Gissing
- 2012
Shall we not have reason to conclude, that other planets besides our own are inhabited by living creatures? All the planets resemble our earth; like it enjoy the light and genial warmth of the sun, have the alternation of night and day, and the succession of summer and winter: but what end would all these phenomena answer unless the planets were inhabited? Considering them as so many peopled worlds, what a sublime idea we conceive of the grandeur of God, and the extent of his empire! How impossible to fathom his bounty, or penetrate the limits of his power! His glory, reflected from so many worlds, tills us with amaze, and calls forth every sentiment of awe, veneration and gratitude. Supposing that his praise is celebrated in all the worlds which roll above and round us, let us not be surpassed in our adoration, but in holy emulation mingle our hymns with those of the inhabitants of these numerous worlds, and celebrate the Lord God of the universe with eternal thanksgiving!
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~ Christoph Christian Sturm ~
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- 2013
- 2014
High achievements demand some other unusual qualification besides an unusual desire for high prizes.
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~ George Eliot ~
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- 2015
- 2016
With what reason canst thou expect that thy children should follow thy good instructions, when thou thyself givest them an ill example? Thou dost but as it were beckon to them with thy head, and shew them the way to heaven by thy good counsel, but thou takest them by the hand and leadest them in the way to hell by thy contrary example.
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~ John Tillotson ~
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- 2017
I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men. But we have all a chance of meeting with some pity, some tenderness, some charity, when we are dead: it is the living only who cannot be forgiven — the living only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east wind. While the heart beats, bruise it — it is your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition — make haste — oppress it with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations. The heart will by and by be still … the eye will cease to entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from all wants as well as from all work. Then your charitable speeches may find vent; then you may remember and pity the toil and the struggle and the failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you may find extenuation for errors, and may consent to bury them.
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~ George Eliot ~
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- 2018
Much time has passed since the first colonists came to rocky shores and dark forests of an unknown continent, much time since President Washington led a young people into the experience of nationhood, much time since President Lincoln saw the American nation through the ordeal of fraternal war — and in these years our population, our plenty and our power have all grown apace. … Yet, as our power has grown, so has our peril. Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers — for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them. Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.
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~ John F. Kennedy ~
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- proposed by Kalki — A statement of JFK for the Thanksgiving Day of 1963, as QOTD of the holiday in 2018.
- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself — and thus make yourself indispensable.
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~ André Gide ~
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- 2022
- 2023
Civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. … Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce. … All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
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~ John F. Kennedy ~
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- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:
- The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. ~ George Eliot
- I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear. ~ George Eliot
- Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~ George Eliot
- My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy. ~ George Eliot
- 2004
- Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. ~ Václav Havel
- 2005
- As good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. ~ Areopagitica by John Milton (published 23 November 1644)
- 2006
- We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~ Thornton Wilder (quote for US Thanksgiving Day)
- 2007
- There's only us, there's only this.
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.
No other road, no other way, no day but today.
I can't control my destiny.
I trust my soul. My only goal is just to be.
There's only now, there's only here.
Give in to love, or live in fear.
No other path, no other way.
No day but today.
~ Jonathan Larson in "Another Day" from Rent ~
- proposed by UDScott (initially proposed in 2005 for movie's opening date, but the John Milton quote was ranked higher)
- 2008
- Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play on the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? ~ John Milton in Areopagitica
- 2009
- Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read! ~ Alfonso X of Castile
- 2010
- Revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. ~ John Milton in Areopagitica
- 2011
- I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. ~ John Milton in Areopagitica
- 2012
- 2013
- proposed by Kalki for the 50th anniversary of the first episode of Doctor Who, first broadcast on 23 November 1963.
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.
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~ John Milton ~ in ~ Areopagitica ~
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- proposed by Kalki in regard to the anniversary of the publishing of Areopagitica
- 2018
It isn't always easy to act on what's in your head instead of what's in your heart. And it isn't always right to. The whole trick to knowing what to do is deciding when to make yourself listen to your head, and when it's okay to just follow your feelings.
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~ Steven Brust ~
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- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
My message and my final message — maybe the final message I give you from this podium — is that: Please, for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible to protect yourself, your family, and your community. I urge you to visit Vaccines.gov to find a location where you can easily get an updated vaccine. And please do it as soon as possible.
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~ Anthony Fauci ~
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- proposed by Kalki; final scheduled White House press briefing before his retirement.
- 2023
- proposed by Kalki; for the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of Doctor Who.
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2003
- A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. ~ Mohandas Gandhi
- 2004
- Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them. ~ Washington Irving
- 2005
- There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. ~ Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (published 24 November 1859)
- 2006
- Only the brave know how to forgive … A coward never forgave; it is not in his nature. ~ Laurence Sterne (born 24 November 1713)
- 2007
- Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it. ~ Baruch Spinoza
- 2008
- Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation. ~ Laurence Sterne
- 2009
- Fight the enemy with the weapons he lacks. ~ Alexander Suvorov
- 2010
- The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others. No, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develop their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice. In fact, the true aim of government is liberty. ~ Baruch Spinoza
- 2011
- Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner. ~ Baruch Spinoza
- 2012
As men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude … that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits; each would then obey God freely with his whole heart, while nothing would be publicly honoured save justice and charity.
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~ Baruch Spinoza ~
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- 2013
Schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy. From all these considerations it is clearer than the sun at noonday, that the true schismatics are those who condemn other men's writings, and seditiously stir up the quarrelsome masses against their authors, rather than those authors themselves, who generally write only for the learned, and appeal solely to reason. In fact, the real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over.
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~ Baruch Spinoza ~
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- 2014
- 2015
Hatred can never be good. … Here, and in what follows, I mean by hatred only hatred towards men. … Envy, derision, contempt, anger, revenge, and other emotions attributable to hatred, or arising therefrom, are bad … Whatsoever we desire from motives of hatred is base, and in a State unjust.
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~ Baruch Spinoza ~ in ~ Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated ~
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- 2016
I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next 1000 years, & exhaust it. How sweet to think of! My extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it — for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
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~ Henry David Thoreau ~
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- 2017
- 2018
It is before all things useful to men to associate their ways of life, to bind themselves together with such bonds as they think most fitted to gather them all into unity, and generally to do whatsoever serves to strengthen friendship. But for this there is need of skill and watchfulness. For men are diverse (seeing that those who live under the guidance of reason are few), yet are they generally envious and more prone to revenge than to sympathy. No small force of character is therefore required to take everyone as he is, and to restrain one's self from imitating the emotions of others. But those who carp at mankind, and are more skilled in railing at vice than in instilling virtue, and who break rather than strengthen men's dispositions, are hurtful both to themselves and others.
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~ Baruch Spinoza ~ in ~ Ethics ~
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- 2019
He whose honor is rooted in popular approval must, day by day, anxiously strive, act, and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the populace is variable and inconstant, so that, if a reputation be not kept up, it quickly withers away. Everyone wishes to catch popular applause for himself, and readily represses the fame of others. The object of the strife being estimated as the greatest of all goods, each combatant is seized with a fierce desire to put down his rivals in every possible way, till he who at last comes out victorious is more proud of having done harm to others than of having done good to himself. This sort of honor, then, is really empty, being nothing.
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~ Baruch Spinoza ~ in ~ Ethics ~
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- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
How can anyone be interested in war? — that glorious pursuit of annihilation with its ceremonious bellowings and trumpetings over the mangling of human bones and muscles and organs and eyes, its inconceivable agonies which could have been prevented by a few well-chosen, reasonable words. How, why, did this unnecessary business begin? Why does anyone want to read about it — this redundant human madness which men accept as inevitable?
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~ Margaret Caroline Anderson ~
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- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. ~ Tecumseh
- 2005
- Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future. ~ Ba Jin (born 25 November 1904)
- 2006
- If we have learned anything at all in this century, it is that all new technologies will be put to use, sooner or later, for better or worse, as it is in our nature to do. ~ Lewis Thomas (born November 25, 1913)
- 2007
- Loving truth and living honestly is my attitude to life. Be true to yourself and be true to others, thus you can be the judge of your behavior. ~ Ba Jin (date of birth)
- 2008
- Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places. ~ Lewis Thomas
- 2009
- Now and then it occurs to one to reflect upon what slender threads of accident depend the most important circumstances of his life; to look back and shudder, realizing how close to the edge of nothingness his being has come. ~ Upton Sinclair (date of death)
- 2010
- The battle to save life is still going on. … This battle to save life will eventually be won. … Blind faith in established experience has been shattered, outmoded regulations have been smashed. ~ Ba Jin
- 2011
- Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. ~ Upton Sinclair (date of death)
- 2012
- 2013
All human history is the struggle between systems that attempt to shackle the human personality in the name of some intangible good on the one hand and systems that enable and expand the scope of human personality in the pursuit of extremely tangible aims. The American system is the most successful in the world because it harmonizes best with the aims and longings of human personality while allowing the best protection to other personalities.
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~ Ben Stein ~
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- 2014
Believing in the one thing That has gotten us this far — That's what love is for To help us through it That's what love is for Nothing else can do it Melt our defenses Bring us back to our senses Give us strength to try once more Baby, that's what love is for.
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~ Amy Grant ~
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- 2015
In the past several years, my hard work, my books which I wrote through blood and tears, and the purpose of my life all has been focused on: helping everyone to have a spring, so that everyone's heart will be bright, everyone will have a happy life, and everyone will have the freedom to develop in any way they want. I aroused people to have thirst for, thirst for brightness; I put a cause in front of people, a cause which is worthy of people's devotion.
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~ Ba Jin ~
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- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
I must mend the ways of my mind. This is a very big place, and I do not know how it works. I am a member of a fragile species, still new to the earth, the youngest creatures of any scale, here only a few moments as evolutionary time is measured, a juvenile species, a child of a species. We are only tentatively set in place, error prone, at risk of fumbling, in real danger at the moment of leaving behind only a thin layer of of our fossils, radioactive at that.
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~ Lewis Thomas ~
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- 2019
- 2020
It is not a simple life to be a single cell, although I have no right to say so, having been a single cell so long ago myself that I have no memory at all of that stage in my life.
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~ Lewis Thomas ~
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- 2021
I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next 1000 years, & exhaust it. How sweet to think of! My extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it — for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
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~ Henry David Thoreau ~
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- 2022
- 2023
As we look to the future, we have to end this cycle of violence in the Middle East. We need to renew our resolve to pursue this two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can one day live side by side — in a two states solution — with equal measure of freedom and dignity, two states for two people; and it’s more important now than ever. Hamas unleashed this terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. You know, to continue down the path of terror and violence and killing and war is to give Hamas what they seek. And we can't do that. … Over the coming days I'll remain engaged with leaders throughout the Middle East as we all work together to build a better future for the region — a future where this kind of violence is unthinkable; a future all children in the region — every child — Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Israeli, Palestinian, Arab — grow up knowing only peace.
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~ Joe Biden ~
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- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude. ~ Elie Wiesel
- 2005
- If I were to be given the opportunity to present a gift to the next generation, it would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh at himself. ~ Charles M. Schulz (born 26 November 1922)
- 2006
- "Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, Why me?" And the voice says, "Nothing personal your name just happened to come up." ~ Charles M. Schulz (born 26 November 1922)
- 2007
- It is not earthly rank, nor birth, nor nationality, nor religious privilege, which proves that we are members of the family of God; it is love, a love that embraces all humanity. ~ Ellen G. White (born 26 November 1827)
- 2008
- Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
~ William Cowper ~
- 2009
- I believe that what separates us all from one another is simply society itself, or, if you like, politics. This is what raises barriers between men, this is what creates misunderstanding.
If I may be allowed to express myself paradoxically, I should say that the truest society, the authentic human community, is extra-social — a wider, deeper society, that which is revealed by our common anxieties, our desires, our secret nostalgias. The whole history of the world has been governed by nostalgias and anxieties, which political action does no more than reflect and interpret, very imperfectly. No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa. ~ Eugène Ionesco
- 2010
- Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
~ William Cowper ~
- 2011
- Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together. ~ Eugène Ionesco
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
I thought that it was strange to assume that it was abnormal for anyone to be forever asking questions about the nature of the universe, about what the human condition really was, my condition, what I was doing here, if there was really something to do. It seemed to me on the contrary that it was abnormal for people not to think about it, for them to allow themselves to live, as it were, unconsciously. Perhaps it's because everyone, all the others, are convinced in some unformulated, irrational way that one day everything will be made clear. Perhaps there will be a morning of grace for humanity. Perhaps there will be a morning of grace for me.
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~ Eugène Ionesco ~
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- 2015
Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
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~ Abraham Lincoln ~
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- proposed by Kalki, for the US Thanksgiving Day 2015, which was established by Lincoln as a national holiday for the last Thursday in November in 1863.
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
- proposed by Kalki, in regard to the US Thanksgiving Day.
- 2021
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.
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~ William Cowper ~
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- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2003
- If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'Thank You', that would suffice. ~ Meister Eckhart
- 2004
- I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appreciate. ~ Elbert Hubbard
- 2005
- Put every great teacher together in a room, and they'd agree about everything, put their disciples in there and they'd argue about everything. ~ Bruce Lee
- 2006
- Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it. ~ Bruce Lee
- 2007
- Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. ~ Bruce Lee
- 2008
- Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there. ~ Bruce Lee
- 2009
- Flow in the living moment. — We are always in a process of becoming and NOTHING is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you'll be flexible to change with the ever changing. OPEN yourelf and flow, my friend. Flow in the TOTAL OPENESS OF THE LIVING MOMENT. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo. ~ Bruce Lee
- 2010
- When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow — you are not understanding yourself. ~ Bruce Lee
- 2011
- Acting funny, but I don't know why,
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky. ~ Jimi Hendrix
- 2012
The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns. Now as the waking body rouses, subpatterns of this great harmony of activity stretch down into the unlit tracks of the stalk-piece of the scheme. Strings of flashing and travelling sparks engage the lengths of it. This means that the body is up and rises to meet its waking day.
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~ Charles Scott Sherrington ~
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- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone really knew something about socialism, or that someone actually knew how to build socialism. It seemed to be a sure fact, as well-known as the electrical system conceived by those who thought they were experts in electrical systems. Whenever they said: “That’s the formula”, we thought they knew.
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~ Fidel Castro ~
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- proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
- 2017
It is in silence, denial, evasion and suppression that danger really lies, not in open and free analysis and discussion … everywhere there seems to be a fear of reliance upon that ancient device so gloriously celebrated by John Milton three hundred years ago — the device of unlimited inquiry. Let us put aside resolutely that great fright, tenderly and without malice, daring to be wrong in something important rather than right in some meticulous banality, fearing no evil while the mind is free to search, imagine, and conclude, inviting our countrymen to try other instruments than coercion and suppression in the effort to meet destiny with triumph, genially suspecting that no creed yet calendared in the annals of politics mirrors the doomful possibilities of infinity.
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~ Charles A. Beard ~
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- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose; Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart; If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease; While the deep meaning is misunderstood, it is useless to meditate on Rest.
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~ Sengcan ~
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- 2021
- 2022
- proposed by Kalki; in regard of her recent death.
- 2023
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2003
- Security is mostly a superstition... Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. ~ Helen Keller
- 2004
- Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. ~ George Washington
- 2005
- A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. ~ William Blake (born 28 November 1757)
- 2006
- Whatever nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge. ~ Enrico Fermi (date of death)
- 2007
- To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
~ William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827)
- 2008
- One must be very naïve or dishonest to imagine that men choose their beliefs independently of their situation. ~ Claude Lévi-Strauss (100th Birthday — born 28 November 1908)
- 2009
- Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize — because they set so little store by them — the immense riches accumulated by the human race on either side of the narrow furrow on which they keep their eyes fixed; by underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished. ~ Claude Lévi-Strauss
- 2010
- I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?"
So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. ~ John Bunyan
- 2011
- There stood a man with his sword drawn, and his face all over with blood. Then said Mr. Great-Heart, Who art thou? The man made answer, saying, I am one whose name is Valiant-for-truth. I am a pilgrim, and am going to the Celestial City. ~ John Bunyan
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
Let it go, let it go! I am one with the wind and sky! Let it go, let it go! You'll never see me cry… Let it go, let it go! And I'll rise like the break of dawn Let it go, let it go! That perfect girl is gone Here I stand In the light of day! Let the storm rage on! The cold never bothered me anyway!
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~ Queen Elsa ~ in ~ Frozen ~
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- 2015
- 2016
He that is down needs fear no fall; He that is low, no pride; He that is humble, ever shall Have God to be his guide. I am content with what I have, Little be it or much: And, Lord, contentment still I crave, Because thou savest such.
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~ John Bunyan ~
|
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- proposed by Kalki, regarding the US Thanksgiving Day of 2019.
- 2020
I never had, and still do not have, the perception of feeling my personal identity. I appear to myself as the place where something is going on, but there is no "I", no "me". Each of us is a kind of crossroads where things happen. The crossroads is purely passive; something happens there. A different thing, equally valid, happens elsewhere. There is no choice, it is just a matter of chance.
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~ Claude Lévi-Strauss ~
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- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
- 2004
- Find the good — and praise it. ~ Alex Haley
- 2005
- Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. ~ C. S. Lewis (born 29 November 1898)
- 2006
- The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There's not one of them which won't make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it isn't. If you leave out justice you'll find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity" and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man. ~ C.S. Lewis (date of birth)
- 2007
- All that is not eternal is eternally out of date. ~ C.S. Lewis
- 2008
- Revolutions are not made; they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back. ~ Wendell Phillips
- 2009
- Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. ~ Louisa May Alcott (born 29 November 1832)
- 2010
- Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art...It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. ~ C.S. Lewis
- 2011
- It is hard to have patience with people who say "There is no death" or "Death doesn't matter." There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter. ~ C. S. Lewis
- 2012
Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger — according to the way you react to it.
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~ C. S. Lewis ~
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- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
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~ C. S. Lewis ~
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- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better.
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~ C. S. Lewis ~ in ~ The Magician's Nephew ~
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- 2021
There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us Peace and quiet and open air wait for us, Somewhere. There's a time for us, Some day a time for us Time together with time to spare, time to look, time to care, Someday. Somewhere we'll find a new way of living. We'll find a way of forgiving, Somewhere.
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~ Stephen Sondheim ~ in ~ West Side Story ~
|
- proposed by Kalki, in regard of his recent death.
- 2022
- 2023
- proposed by Kalki ; in regard to her recent death, and her scheduled funeral on this date.
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:
- Life is too deep for words, so don't try to describe it, just live it. ~ C. S. Lewis
- 2004
- The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. ~ William James
- 2005
- Hello. My name is Iñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. ~ Mandy Patinkin (born 30 November 1952) as "Inigo Montoya" in The Princess Bride
- 2006
- It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more. ~ Winston Churchill (born 30 November 1874).
- 2007
- The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it. ~ Jacques Barzun (born November 30, 1907)
- 2008
- The one thing that unifies men in a given age is not their individual philosophies but the dominant problem that these philosophies are designed to solve. ~ Jacques Barzun
- 2009
- It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. ~ Mark Twain (born 30 November 1835)
- 2010
- When a great genius appears in the world the dunces are all in confederacy against him. ~ Jonathan Swift
- 2011
- A sound heart is a safer guide than an ill-trained conscience. ~ Mark Twain
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
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~ Winston Churchill ~
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- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.
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~ Mark Twain ~
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- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
Surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish we had rather left unsaid; nor can there anything be well more contrary to the ends for which people meet together, than to part unsatisfied with each other or themselves.
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~ Jonathan Swift ~
|
- 2024
- Rank or add further suggestions…
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:
- Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old. ~ Jonathan Swift
- We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. ~ Jonathan Swift
- He gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. ~ Jonathan Swift
Ranking system:
- 4 : Excellent - should definitely be used. (Perhaps, at most, only one quote per day should be ranked thus by any user, as to avoid confusions.)
- 3 : Very Good - strong desire to see it used.
- 2 : Good - some desire to see it used.
- 1 : Acceptable - but with no particular desire to see it used.
- 0 : Not acceptable - not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.