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Wikiquote:Quote of the day/October

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Today is Monday, December 30, 2024; it is now 14:35 (UTC)


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This page lists "Quotes of the day" which have been used for dates in October, with links to pages for further suggestions for each date. 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: October 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2013 · 2014 · 2015 · 2016 · 2017 · 2018 · 2019

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.
2004
When you get to a fork in the road, take it. ~ Yogi Berra
2005
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children. ~ Jimmy Carter (born 1 October 1924)
2006
Love and music and happiness and family, that's what it's all about. I believe in these things. It would be awful not to, wouldn't it? ~ Julie Andrews
2007
Creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chronological order, since the latest science replaces what went before. But the arts are another story — a story of infinite addition. We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin
2008
Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black. ~ Henry Ford (100th anniversary of Ford putting the Model T on the market at a price of US$825)
2009
The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good. ~ Rufus Choate
2010
Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin
2011
THE OCTOBER COUNTRY … that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coalbins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain… ~ Ray Bradbury
  • proposed by Kalki, for the start of the month of October 2011
2012
Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.
~ Jimmy Carter ~
2013
Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers would be lulled into complacence by the accidental rise of a Franklin or a Washington. Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.
~ Daniel J. Boorstin ~
2014
We live in a time of transition, an uneasy era which is likely to endure for the rest of this century. During the period we may be tempted to abandon some of the time-honored principles and commitments which have been proven during the difficult times of past generations. We must never yield to this temptation. Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities — not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.
~ Jimmy Carter ~
2015
I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love.
~ Jimmy Carter ~
2016
Life is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius.
~ Julie Andrews ~
2017
Virtue is not a mushroom, that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep, or regard it not; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather.
~ Isaac Barrow ~
2018
Ultimately, the basic issue is whether America will provide global leadership that springs from the unity and the integrity of the American people, or whether extremist doctrines, the manipulation of the truth, will define America's role in the world.
At stake is nothing less than our nation's soul. …
But I am not discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our country. I never do. I believe, as I always have, the essential decency and compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.
~ Jimmy Carter ~
2019
Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.
~ Annie Besant ~
2020
I still have complete confidence that the United States, if given time, will resolve its problems. We have always been able to do that in the past, whenever we faced difficult questions. The United States still has that innate strength.
~ Jimmy Carter ~
2021
We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.
~ Daniel J. Boorstin ~
2022
Ukraine will continue to defend itself and will win in this war waged against us. Because we are on our land. The truth is on our side. And the whole civilized world is with us. We are fighting for what is true for any people on the planet — for life and freedom, for the right to happiness for all our families, for all our children.
Russia was left alone. It is already isolated and will be condemned for this war.
~ Volodymyr Zelenskyy ~
  • proposed by Kalki; recent remarks on current events.
2023
There is a remarkable trend toward fundamentalism in all religions — including the different denominations of Christianity as well as Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam. Increasingly, true believers are inclined to begin a process of deciding: "Since I am aligned with God, I am superior and my beliefs should prevail, and anyone who disagrees with me is inherently wrong," and the next step is "inherently inferior." The ultimate step is "subhuman," and then their lives are not significant.
That tendency has created, throughout the world, intense religious conflicts. Those Christians who resist the inclination toward fundamentalism and who truly follow the nature, actions, and words of Jesus Christ should encompass people who are different from us with our care, generosity, forgiveness, compassion, and unselfish love.
It is not easy to do this. It is a natural human inclination to encapsulate ourselves in a superior fashion with people who are just like us — and to assume that we are fulfilling the mandate of our lives if we just confine our love to our own family or to people who are similar and compatible. Breaking through this barrier and reaching out to others is what personifies a Christian and what emulates the perfect example that Christ set for us.
~ Jimmy Carter ~
2024
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. ~ Mae West
2005
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone. ~ Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone
  • proposed by Kalki The first episode of The Twilight Zone, "Where is Everybody?" aired on 2 October 1959.
2006

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
~ Wallace Stevens ~

2007
If there must be a god in the house, must be,
Saying things in the room and on the stair,

Let him move as the sunlight moves on the floor,
Or moonlight, silently, as Plato's ghost

Or Aristotle's skeleton. Let him hang out
His stars on the wall. He must dwell quietly.

~ Wallace Stevens ~ (born 2 October 1879)
2008

I am one of you and being one of you
Is being and knowing what I am and know.
Yet I am the necessary angel of earth,
Since, in my sight, you see the earth again,
Cleared of its stiff and stubborn, man-locked set
And, in my hearing, you hear its tragic drone
Rise liquidly in liquid lingerings,
Like watery words awash; like meanings said
By repetitions of half-meanings.

~ Wallace Stevens ~
2009
There is but one means to extenuate the effects of enemy fire: it is to develop a more violent fire oneself. ~ Ferdinand Foch (born 2 October 1851)
2010
The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least. ~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (born 2 October 1869)
2011
The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. ~ Ferdinand Foch
2012
Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.
~ Wallace Stevens ~
2013
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
2014
I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
2015
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
2016
Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different road, so long as we reach the same goal. Wherein is the cause for quarrelling?
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
2017
There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.
~ Graham Greene ~
2018
In childhood we live under the brightness of immortality — heaven is as near and actual as seaside. Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities: God is good, the grown-up man or woman knows the answer to every question, there is such a thing as truth, and justice is as measured and faultless as a clock. Our heroes are simple: they are brave, they tell the truth, they are good swordsmen and they are never in the long run really defeated. That is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood — for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we knew the rules, but the later books are complicated and contradictory with experience; they are formed out of our own disappointing memories…
~ Graham Greene ~
2019
The truth seems to be that we live in concepts of the imagination before the reason has established them. If this is true, then reason is simply the methodizer of the imagination.
~ Wallace Stevens ~
2020
Sooner or later...one has to take sides — if one is to remain human.
~ Graham Greene ~
2021
People don't like reality, they don't like common sense, until age forces it on them.
~ Graham Greene ~
2022
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and the simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.
~ Graham Greene ~
2023
The path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experience of the dormant passions lying hidden with in me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
in
~ The Story of My Experiments with Truth ~
2024
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~ The Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot ~
2004
Given the choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier. ~ "Blore's Razor" (Author unknown)
2005
Everyone seems to be playing well within the boundaries of his usual rule set. I have yet to hear anyone say something that seemed likely to mitigate the idiocy of this age. ~ John Perry Barlow (born 3 October 1947)
2006
The average "educated" American has been made to believe that, somehow, the United States must lead the world even though hardly anyone has any information at all about those countries we are meant to lead. Worse, we have very little information about our own country and its past. ~ Gore Vidal (born 3 October 1925)
2007
I'm an optimist. In order to be libertarian, you have to be an optimist. You have to have a benign view of human nature, to believe that human beings left to their own devices are basically good. But I'm not so sure about human institutions, and I think the real point of argument here is whether or not large corporations are human institutions or some other entity we need to be thinking about curtailing. Most libertarians are worried about government but not worried about business. I think we need to be worrying about business in exactly the same way we are worrying about government. ~ John Perry Barlow (born 3 October 1947)
2008
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. ~ Gore Vidal
2009
We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. ~ John Perry Barlow
2010
I have always felt that no matter how inscrutable its ways and means, the universe is working perfectly and working according to a greater plan than we can know. ~ John Perry Barlow
2011
The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all. ~ Gore Vidal
2012
Don't ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren't any and if there were, they would be killed immediately. I'm never surprised by bad behaviour. I expect it.
~ Gore Vidal ~
2013
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders.
~ John Perry Barlow ~
2014
TV in America created the most coherent reality distortion field that I’ve ever seen. Therein is the problem: People who vote watch TV, and they are hallucinating like a sonofabitch. Basically, what we have in this country is government by hallucinating mob.
~ John Perry Barlow ~
2015
You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.
~ Thomas Wolfe ~
2016
Through Chance, we are each a ghost to all the others, and our only reality; through Chance, the huge hinge of the world, and a grain of dust; the stone that starts an avalanche, the pebble whose concentric circles widen across the seas.
~ Thomas Wolfe ~
2017
Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back.
~ Gore Vidal ~
2018
Christ himself, who preached the life of love, was yet as lonely as any man that ever lived. Yet I could not say that he was mistaken because he preached the life of love and fellowship, and lived and died in loneliness; nor would I dare assert his way was wrong because a billion men have since professed his way and never followed it.
~ Thomas Wolfe ~
2019
Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.
~ Gore Vidal ~
2020
My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general ("They tell lies," he used to say with wonder, "even when they don't have to").
~ Gore Vidal ~
2021
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
~ Thomas Wolfe ~
2022

They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to teach me
If they can't understand it, how can they reach me
I guess they can't, I guess they won't
I guess they front, that's why I know my life is out of luck, fool.

Been spendin' most their lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise
Been spendin' most their lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spendin' most our lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spendin' most our lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise.

Tell me why are we, so blind to see
That the ones we hurt, are you and me?

~ Coolio ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard to his recent death.
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher. ~ Giacomo Casanova
2005
If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God. ~ Stephen Hawking
2006
A comedian does funny things. A good comedian does things funny. ~ Buster Keaton (born 4 October 1895)
2007
Personally I do not resort to force — not even the force of law — to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example — of fashion. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes (born 4 October 1822)
2008
The quicker humanity advances, the more important it is to be the one who deals the first blow. ~ Ernst Kaltenbrunner (born 4 October 1903)
2009
The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations. — How is this? ~ Rutherford B. Hayes
2010
Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes
2011
The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes
2012
For honest merit to succeed amid the tricks and intrigues which are now so lamentably common, I know is difficult; but the honor of success is increased by the obstacles which are to be surmounted. Let me triumph as a man or not at all.
~ Rutherford B. Hayes ~
2013
General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded. In the civilized countries of the world, the question is how to distribute most generally and equally the property of the world. As a rule, where education is most general the distribution of property is most general.... As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property.
~ Rutherford B. Hayes ~
2014
Buster survives tornados, waterfalls, avalanches of boulders, and falls from great heights, and never pauses to take a bow: He has his eye on his goal. And his movies, seen as a group, are like a sustained act of optimism in the face of adversity; surprising, how without asking, he earns our admiration and tenderness.
Because he was funny, because he wore a porkpie hat, Keaton's physical skills are often undervalued … no silent star did more dangerous stunts than Buster Keaton. Instead of using doubles, he himself doubled for his actors, doing their stunts as well as his own.
~ Roger Ebert ~
2015
Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid.
~ Rutherford B. Hayes ~
2016
Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise. They are hurt less by undeserved censure than by undeserved commendation. Abuse helps; often praise hurts.
~ Rutherford B. Hayes ~
2017

Yeah, it's over before you know it.
It all goes by so fast.
And bad nights last forever
And the good nights don't ever seem to last.
And man, we never had the real thing,
But sometimes we used to kiss
Back when we didn't understand
What we were caught up in.

Wherever you are tonight
I wish you the best of everything, in the world,
And I hope you found
Whatever you were looking for.

~ Tom Petty ~
  • proposed by Kalki in regard to his recent death.
2018
One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.
~ Rutherford B. Hayes ~
2019
The President of the United States of necessity owes his election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a political party, the members of which cherish with ardor and regard as of essential importance the principles of their party organization; but he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best.
~ Rutherford B. Hayes ~
2020
I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done. This talent, or these two talents, I have cultivated. Silence and concise, brief speaking have got me some laurels, and, I suspect, lost me some. No odds. Do what is natural to you, and you are sure to get all the recognition you are entitled to.
~ Rutherford B. Hayes ~
2021
The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher.
~ Rutherford B. Hayes ~
2022
With the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian in Florida … I’ve directed that every possible action be taken to save lives and get help to survivors, because every single minute counts.
It’s not just a crisis for Florida.  This is an American crisis.  We’re all in this together. 
And I’ve spoken to Governor DeSantis on multiple occasions, as well this morning, as well as mayors and county officials — both Republican and Democrat — from the places most affected.  And I spoke with Governor McMaster of South Carolina this morning as well. … We’re just beginning to see the scale of that destruction. It’s likely to rank among the worst … in the nation’s history. … It’s going to take months, years to rebuild. … I just want the people of Florida to know we see what you’re going through, and we’re with you. We’re going to do everything we can for you. … I’m grateful for the brave women and men — federal, state, and local folks working so hard.  They’re all working as one team. … I have immense gratitude for the first responders and the emergency crews who always show up no matter what.
At times like these, Americans come together. They put aside politics, they put aside division, and we come together to help each other. … That’s America.  That’s who we are.  We’re going to keep doing everything we can, and we’ll do it as the United States of America.
~ Joe Biden ~
2023
Change is not merely necessary to life; it is life.
~ Alvin Toffler ~
2024
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. ~ Marie Curie
2005
Politicians at international forums may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal respect for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, the miracle of our own existence. ~ Václav Havel (born 5 October 1936)
2006
Almost all men, and those that seem to be very miserable, love life, because they cannot bear to lose sight of such a beautiful and lovely world. The ideas, that every moment whilst we live have a beauty that we take not distinct notice of, brings a pleasure that, when we come to the trial, we had rather live in much pain and misery than lose. ~ Jonathan Edwards
2007
The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations. … He does not confuse truth with plausibility; he takes for truth what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable. … The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy. ~ Denis Diderot
2008
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not. ~ Václav Havel
2009
There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint. ~ Denis Diderot
2010
The only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the earth and, at the same time, in the cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for self-transcendence. Politicians at international forums may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal respect for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, the miracle of our own existence. Only someone who submits to the authority of the universal order and of creation, who values the right to be a part of it and a participant in it, can genuinely value himself and his neighbors, and thus honor their rights as well. ~ Václav Havel
2011
There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance. Awareness of all the most dangerous kinds of vanity, both in others and in ourselves. A good mind. A modest certainty about the meaning of things. Gratitude for the gift of life and the courage to take responsibility for it. Vigilance of spirit. ~ Václav Havel
2012
Periods of history when values undergo a fundamental shift are certainly not unprecedented. … The distinguishing features of such transitional periods are a mixing and blending of cultures and a plurality or parallelism of intellectual and spiritual worlds. These are periods when all consistent value systems collapse, when cultures distant in time and space are discovered or rediscovered. They are periods when there is a tendency to quote, to imitate, and to amplify, rather than to state with authority or integrate. New meaning is gradually born from the encounter, or the intersection, of many different elements. … an amalgamation of cultures is taking place. I see it as proof that something is happening, something is being born, that we are in a phase when one age is succeeding another, when everything is possible.
~ Václav Havel ~
2013
No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
~ Denis Diderot ~
2014
The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him.
~ Václav Havel ~
2015
The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.
~ Denis Diderot ~
2016
We are not here alone nor for ourselves alone … we are an integral part of higher, mysterious entities against whom it is not advisable to blaspheme. This forgotten awareness is encoded in all religions. All cultures anticipate it in various forms. It is one of the things that form the basis of man's understanding of himself, of his place in the world, and ultimately of the world as such.
~ Václav Havel ~
2017
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
~ Denis Diderot ~
2018
A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clearsighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerality of everything human. It is only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action.
~ Václav Havel ~
2019
We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.
~ Denis Diderot ~
2020
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.
~ Václav Havel ~
2021
The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin — and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.
~ Václav Havel ~
2022
Sometimes I think some people were disappointed when they met me and found out I wasn't any smarter or happier than they were. I'm proud and I've got my own ideas, but I ain't no better than nobody else. I've often wondered why I became so popular, and maybe that's the reason. I think I reach people because I'm with 'em, not apart from 'em.
~ Loretta Lynn ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of her recent death.
2023
Yes, the universe had a beginning. Yes, the universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of our body's atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnace within high-mass stars. We are not simply in the universe, we are part of it. We are born from it. One might even say we have been empowered by the universe to figure itself out — and we have only just begun.
~ Neil deGrasse Tyson ~
2024
Today's world, as we all know, is faced with multiple threats. From whichever angle I look at this menace, I always come to the conclusion that salvation can only come through a profound awakening of man to his own personal responsibility, which is at the same time a global responsibility. Thus, the only way to save our world, as I see it, lies in a democracy that recalls its ancient Greek roots: democracy based on an integral human personality personally answering for the fate of the community.
~ Václav Havel ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
That man is an Euclidian point: position without substance. ~ Ernest Rutherford
2004
I don't get no respect! ~ Rodney Dangerfield (recent death)
2005
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~ (died 6 October 1892)
2006

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last — far off — at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

2007
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~ (died 6 October 1892)
2008
It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. ~ David Brin
2009
Every marvel of our age arose out of the critical give and take of an open society. No other civilization ever managed to incorporate this crucial innovation, weaving it into daily life. And if you disagree with this … say so! ~ David Brin
2010

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

2011
Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city. ~ Le Corbusier
2012
Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.
~ David Brin ~
2013
Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.
~ Le Corbusier ~
2014
Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on.
~ David Brin ~
2015
I hate the whole übermensch, superman temptation that pervades science fiction. I believe no protagonist should be so competent, so awe-inspiring, that a committee of 20 really hard-working, intelligent people couldn't do the same thing.
~ David Brin ~
2016
Knowledge isn’t restrained by the limits of Malthus. Information doesn’t need topsoil to grow in, only freedom. Given eager minds and experimentation, it feeds itself like a chain reaction.
~ David Brin ~
2017
Perhaps … I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.
~ Kazuo Ishiguro ~
  • proposed by DanielTom in regard to the author's winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
2018
The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.
~ David Brin ~
2019
One of life’s joys was to have friends who gave you reality checks...who would call you on your crap before it rose so high you drowned in it.
~ David Brin ~
2020
Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!
~ Donald Trump ~
2021
Nation states are archaic leftovers from when each man feared the tribe over the hill, an attitude we can’t afford anymore.
~ David Brin ~
2022
Beware of assumptions that seem 'obvious' in one decade. They may become quaint in the next.
~ David Brin ~
2023
Anyone who tries to predict the future is inevitably a fool. Present company included. A prophet without a sense of humor is just stupid.
~ David Brin ~
2024
Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal these forms; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage; the image of these is distinct and tangible within us without ambiguity. It is for this reason that these are beautiful forms, the most beautiful forms. Everybody is agreed to that, the child, the savage and the metaphysician.
~ Le Corbusier ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
One of the basic tenets of Zen Buddhism is that there is no way to characterize what Zen is. No matter what verbal space you try to enclose Zen in, it resists, and spills over... ~ Douglas Hofstadter in Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
2004
Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves. ~ U Thant
2005
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. ~ Niels Bohr (born 7 October 1885)
2006
It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature. ~ Niels Bohr
2007
We depend on our words … Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character … We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly. ~ Niels Bohr
2008
Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us. ~ Steven Erikson
2009
I am doing it
the it I am doing is
the I that is doing it
the I that is doing it is
the it I am doing
it is doing the I that am doing it
I am being done by the it I am doing
it is doing it
~ Ronald David Laing ~
2010
We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections. ~ Niels Bohr
2011
One may think there is a gate to go through
and look a long time for it
without finding it
One may find it and
it may not open
If it opens one may be through it
As one goes through it
one sees that the gate one went through
was the self that went through it
no one went through a gate
there was no gate to go through
no one ever found a gate
no one ever realized there was never a gate
~ Ronald David Laing ~
2012
Can you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?
~ Steven Erikson ~
2013
The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse.
~ Steven Erikson ~
2014
I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.
~ Niels Bohr ~
2015
Forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human existence.
~ Desmond Tutu ~
2016
You and I are created for transcendence, laughter, caring. God deliberately did not make the world perfect, for God is looking for you and me to be fellow workers with God.
~ Desmond Tutu ~
2017
The belief of some governments that nuclear weapons are a legitimate and essential source of security is not only misguided, but also dangerous, for it incites proliferation and undermines disarmament. All nations should reject these weapons completely — before they are ever used again.
This is a time of great global tension, when fiery rhetoric could all too easily lead us, inexorably, to unspeakable horror. The specter of nuclear conflict looms large once more. If ever there were a moment for nations to declare their unequivocal opposition to nuclear weapons, that moment is now.
~ ICAN ~
2018
Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. For you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge.
Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.
~ Steven Erikson ~
2019
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
~ Desmond Tutu ~
2020
A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.
~ Desmond Tutu ~
2021
I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as "objective" and "subjective" are, a great liberation of thought.
~ Niels Bohr ~
2022
We respect Ukrainians' desire to see their country free, safe and prosperous.
I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources, they have been hardened by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.
Today, these words may be perceived by some people with hostility. They can be interpreted in many possible ways. Yet, many people will hear me. And I will say one thing — Russia has never been and will never be "anti-Ukraine". And what Ukraine will be — it is up to its citizens to decide.
~ Vladimir Putin ~
  • proposed by Kalki; Putin's assertions of noble sentiments and charitable intentions, after statements denying Ukraine's genuine independent sovereignty, prior to initiating the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
2023
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2023 to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all. Her brave struggle has come with tremendous personal costs. Altogether, the regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. … In awarding her this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour her courageous fight for human rights, freedom, and democracy in Iran. This year’s Peace Prize also recognises the hundreds of thousands of people who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against the theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women. Only by embracing equal rights for all can the world achieve the fraternity between nations that Alfred Nobel sought to promote. The award to Narges Mohammadi follows a long tradition in which the Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the Peace Prize to those working to advance social justice, human rights, and democracy. These are important preconditions for lasting peace.
~ Norwegian Nobel Committee ~
2024
We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love.
~ Ronald David Laing ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
We've moved away from being a culture of people who think about movies to one made up of people who believe that spouting a list of preferences is the same as registering an opinion. ~ Stephanie Zacharek
2004
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else. ~ Charles Dickens in Our Mutual Friend
2005
Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you've always known. ~ Frank Herbert in Dune (born 8 October 1920)
2006
Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife? ~ Frank Herbert in Dune
2007
The sequential nature of actual events is not illuminated with lengthy precision by the powers of prescience except under the most extraordinary circumstances. The oracle grasps incidents cut out of the historic chain. Eternity moves. It inflicts itself upon the oracle and the supplicant alike. Let Muad'dib's subjects doubt his majesty and his oracular visions. Let them deny his powers. Let them never doubt Eternity. ~ Frank Herbert in Dune Messiah
2008

The year of jubilee has come;
Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand;
Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil,
The corn, drink the wine and all the harvest-home.

~ Edmund Clarence Stedman ~

2009
Muad'Dib could indeed see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. Just so, Muad'Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door." And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever down into stagnation." ~ Frank Herbert in Dune ~
2010
One always feels that a merely educated man holds his philosophical views as if they were so many pennies in his pocket. They are separate from his life. Whereas with a cultured man there is no gap or lacuna between his opinions and his life. Both are dominated by the same organic, inevitable fatality. They are what he is. ~ John Cowper Powys
2011
Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum. ~ Frank Herbert in Chapterhouse : Dune ~
2012
The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed. We feel threatened by such demands. "I already know the important things!" we say. Then Changer comes and throws our old ideas away.
~ Frank Herbert ~
in
~ Chapterhouse : Dune ~
2013
To know a thing well, know it limits. Only when pushed beyond its tolerances will true nature be seen. Do not depend only on theory if your life is at stake.
~ Frank Herbert ~
in
~ Chapterhouse : Dune ~
2014
Not the wretchedest man or woman but has a deep secretive mythology with which to wrestle with the material world and to overcome it and pass beyond it. Not the wretchedest human being but has his share in the creative energy that builds the world. We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials.
~ John Cowper Powys ~
2015
The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.
~ John Cowper Powys ~
2016
Every day that we allow ourselves to take things for granted, every day that we allow some little physical infirmity or worldly worry to come between us and our obstinate, indignant, defiant exultation, we are weakening our genius for life.
~ John Cowper Powys ~
2017
Bless the Maker and all His Water.
Bless the coming and going of Him,
May His passing cleanse the world.
May He keep the world for his people.
~ Frank Herbert ~
in
~ Dune ~
2018
Man is the animal who weeps and laughs – and writes. If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back – in a book.
~ John Cowper Powys ~
2019
When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.
~ Frank Herbert ~
2020
The thing we must do intensely is be human together. People are more important than things. We must get together. The best thing humans can have going for them is each other. We have each other. We must reject everything which humiliates us. Humans are not objects of consumption. We must develop an absolute priority of humans ahead of profit — any humans ahead of any profit. Then we will survive. … Together.
~ Frank Herbert ~
2021
Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
~ Frank Herbert ~
in
~ Dune ~
2022
Does a populace have informed consent when a ruling minority acts in secret to ignite a war, doing this to justify the existence of the minority's forces? History already has answered that question. Every society in the ConSentiency today reflects the historical judgment that failure to provide full information for informed consent on such an issue represents an ultimate crime.
~ Frank Herbert ~
2023
Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all. Such extremism comes easily to men who have doped themselves with delusions of their own overriding virtue and the rascality of others.
~ John W. Gardner ~
2024
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. ~ Groucho Marx
2005
I think the ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei, 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner
2006

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.
~ John Lennon ~ (born 9 October 1940)

2007
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. ~ John Lennon
2008
Builders and warriors, strengthen the steps.
Reader, if you have not grasped — read again,
after a while.
The predestined is not accidental,
The leaves fall in their time.
And winter is but the harbinger of spring.
All is revealed; all is attainable.
~ Nicholas Roerich ~ (born 9 October 1874)
2009
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me.
~ John Lennon ~
2010

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.

All you need is love.
~ John Lennon ~

2011
Cease speaking of enemies when an achievement can kindle a great light. Solitude will transmit the message better than the murmurs of crowds. ~ Nicholas Roerich
2012
Christ said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." And the Indians say that and the Zen people say that. We're all God. I'm not a god or the God, but we're all God and we're all potentially divine — and potentially evil. We all have everything within us and the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh and within us, and if you look hard enough you'll see it.
~ John Lennon ~
2013
We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA.
Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA.
NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.
NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic.
All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country.
As two ambassadors of NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our country and our people.
~ John Lennon & Yoko Ono ~
2014
We all been playing those mind games forever
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil.
Doing the mind guerrilla,
Some call it magic — the search for the grail.
Love is the answer and you know that for sure.
Love is a flower, you got to let it — you got to let it grow.
~ John Lennon ~
2015
I'm not claiming divinity. I've never claimed purity of soul. I've never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can … But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.
~ John Lennon ~
2016
The celebrated Mr. K.
Performs his feat on Saturday at Bishops Gate
The Hendersons will dance and sing
As Mr. Kite flies through the ring don't be late
Messrs. K and H. assure the public
Their production will be second to none
And of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz!
~ John Lennon ~
2017
You say you want a revolution,
Well, you know, we all want to change the world...
But when you talk about destruction,
Don't you know that you can count me out.
~ John Lennon ~
2018
History moves in contradictions. The skeleton of historic existence, the economic structure of society, also develops in contradictions. Forms eternally follow forms. Everything has only a passing being. The dynamic force of life creates the new over and over again — such is the law inherent in reality.
~ Nikolai Bukharin ~
2019
From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living nothing is in my eyes better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad.
~ Ivo Andrić ~
2020
Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Everyone you meet
~ John Lennon ~
2021
We are dissipating superstition, ignorance and fear. We are forging courage, will and knowledge.
Every striving toward enlightenment is welcome. Every prejudice, caused by ignorance, is exposed.
~ Nicholas Roerich ~
2022
One must manifest discipline of spirit; without it one cannot become free. To the slave discipline of spirit will be a prison; to the liberated one it will be a wondrous healing garden. So long as the discipline of spirit is as fetters the doors are closed, for in fetters one cannot ascend the steps.
One may understand the discipline of spirit as wings.
Whosoever will comprehend the discipline of spirit as illumination of the future worlds is already prepared.
~ Nicholas Roerich ~
2023
To everything in this world there comes an end; there even comes an end to the torments suffered in those intermediate states of transition when the last secret tear of one's soul is bitterly swallowed, and the crisis passes, resolving itself into some new sort of phase, which even as it comes into existence is fated in turn to pass away, to disappear in the eternal changing of the times and seasons.
~ Nikolai Bukharin ~
2024
Last year was "All You Need Is Love." This year it's "Give Peace a Chance." Remember love. The only hope for any of us is peace. Violence begets violence. If you want to get peace, you can get it as soon as you like if we all pull together. You're all geniuses and you're all beautiful. You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace. Think peace, live peace, and breathe peace and you'll get it as soon as you like.
~ John Lennon ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication. ~ Terry Pratchett
2004
You are educated when you have the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence. ~ Robert Frost
2005
The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity — love. And the story of a love is not important — what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity. ~ Helen Hayes (born 10 October 1900)
2006
I would like to make the point that we cannot undo the past but we can learn from it, and we cannot predict the future but we can shape and build it. ~ Epeli Ganilau (born 10 October 1951)
2007
The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world — and the most dangerous. ~ James Clavell (born 10 October 1924)
2008
When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty. When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice. ~ Lin Yutang
2009

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

~ The Norwegian Nobel Committee on the Nobel Peace Prize of 2009 ~

2010
I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him. ~ Lin Yutang
2011
I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom. ~ Lin Yutang
2012
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
~ Lin Yutang ~
2013
A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already.
~ Lin Yutang ~
  • proposed by N6n
2014
To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline — training — is about.
~ James Clavell ~
2015
Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it.
~ Helen Hayes ~
2016
I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot.
~ Lin Yutang ~
2017
When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.
~ Lin Yutang ~
2018
The good die young — but not always. The wicked prevail — but not consistently. I am confused by life, and I feel safe within the confines of the theatre. O'Neil's dramas are slapstick farces, Albee's riddles are simple explanations, Pinter's threatening and threatened anti-heroes are innocent babes — next to life and the living.
I cry out for order and find it only in art.
~ Helen Hayes ~
2019
Of course wars are fought by teenagers — you realize that — they really ought to be fought by the politicians and the old people who start these wars.
~ James Clavell ~
2020
The need for international solidarity and multilateral cooperation is more conspicuous than ever. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2020 to the World Food Programme for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.
~ Norwegian Nobel Committee ~
2021
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace. Ms Ressa and Mr Muratov are receiving the Peace Prize for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia. At the same time, they are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.
~ Norwegian Nobel Committee ~
2022
By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022 to Ales Bialiatski, Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence in the neighbour countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Through their consistent efforts in favour of humanist values, anti-militarism and principles of law, this year’s laureates have revitalised and honoured Alfred Nobel’s vision of peace and fraternity between nations — a vision most needed in the world today.
~ Norwegian Nobel Committee ~
  • proposed by Kalki; recent announcement of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winners.
2023
We are embarking on a long and difficult war. The war was forced upon us by a murderous attack by Hamas.
~ Benjamin Netanyahu ~
2024
I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.
~ Lin Yutang ~
2025
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2003
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. ~ Benjamin Franklin
2004
I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me. All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. ~ Wangari Maathai (Nobel Peace Prize of 2004)
2005
You always fall when you're training, that's sort of part of the process. If you're not falling, you're not training hard enough. ~ Michelle Trachtenberg (born 11 October 1985)
2006
It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death ~ Eleanor Roosevelt (born 11 October 1884)
2007
At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want — for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt (born 11 October 1884)
2008
Your true home is in the here and the now. It is not limited by time, space, nationality, or race. Your true home is not an abstract idea. It is something you can touch and live in every moment. With mindfulness and concentration, the energies of the Buddha, you can find your true home in the full relaxation of your mind and body in the present moment. No one can take it away from you. Other people can occupy your country, they can even put you in prison, but they cannot take away your true home and your freedom. ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh (born 11 October 1926)
2009
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
2010
Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be "damned if you do, and damned if you don't." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
2011
Children understand very well that in each woman, in each man, in each child, there is capacity of waking up, of understanding, and of loving. Many children have told me that they cannot show me anyone who does not have this capacity. Some people allow it to develop, and some do not, but everyone has it. This capacity of waking up, of being aware of what is going on in your feelings, in your body, in your perceptions, in the world, is called Buddha nature, the capacity of understanding and loving. Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace. ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh
2012
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~
2013
One of the blessings of age is to learn not to part on a note of sharpness, to treasure the moments spent with those we love, and to make them whenever possible good to remember, for time is short.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
2014
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
2015
Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
2016
We face the future fortified with the lessons we have learned from the past. It is today that we must create the world of the future. Spinoza, I think, pointed out that we ourselves can make experience valuable when, by imagination and reason, we turn it into foresight.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
2017
In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.
~ Thích Nhất Hạnh ~
2018
I have been one of those who have carried the fight for complete freedom of information in the United Nations. And while accepting the fact that some of our press, our radio commentators, our prominent citizens and our movies may at times be blamed legitimately for things they have said and done, still I feel that the fundamental right of freedom of thought and expression is essential. If you curtail what the other fellow says and does, you curtail what you yourself may say and do.
In our country we must trust the people to hear and see both the good and the bad and to choose the good.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
2019
I cannot remember a time when the question on so many people's lips was "How can we prevent war?"
There is a widespread understanding among the people of this nation, and probably among the people of the world, that there is no safety except through the prevention of war.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
2020
Thich Nhat Hanh offers a way out of this nightmare, a solution acceptable to rational leaders. He has traveled the world, counseling statesmen, religious leaders, scholars and writers, and enlisting their support. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~
2021
It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
2022
The present moment
contains past and future.
The secret of transformation,
is in the way we handle this very moment.
~ Thích Nhất Hạnh ~
2023
In this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.
There is no justification for terrorism. There is no excuse.
Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination. Its stated purpose is the annihilation of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people.
~ Joe Biden ~
2024
We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity. In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are. … In the long run there is no more exhilarating experience than to determine one's position, state it bravely and then act boldly.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
2025
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2004
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. ~ Christopher Reeve
2005
Tragedy blows through your life like a tornado, uprooting everything, creating chaos. You wait for the dust to settle, and then you choose. You can live in the wreckage and pretend it's still the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. ~ Kristen Bell as "Veronica" in Veronica Mars episode "Meet John Smith" (originally aired 12 October 2004)
2006
I have always read that the world, both land and water, was spherical, as the authority and researches of Ptolemy and all the others who have written on this subject demonstrate and prove, as do the eclipses of the moon and other experiments that are made from east to west, and the elevation of the North Star from north to south. ~ Christopher Columbus
2007
Everything abstract is ultimately part of the concrete. Everything inanimate finally serves the living. That is why every activity dealing in abstraction stands in ultimate service to a living whole. ~ Edith Stein (born 12 October 1891)
2008
The concept which assumes that everything in the Church is irrevocably set for all times appears to me to be a false one. It would be naive to disregard that the Church has a history; the Church is a human institution and like all things human, was destined to change and evolve; likewise, its development takes place often in the form of struggles. ~ Edith Stein
2009
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. ~ Aleister Crowley
2010
I admit that my visions can never mean to other men as much as they do to me. I do not regret this. All I ask is that my results should convince seekers after truth that there is beyond doubt something worth while seeking, attainable by methods more or less like mine. I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics, or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle. ~ Aleister Crowley
2011
Everywhere the need exists for maternal sympathy and help, and thus we are able to recapitulate in the one word motherliness that which we have developed as the characteristic value of woman. Only, the motherliness must be that which does not remain within the narrow circle of blood relations or of personal friends; but in accordance with the model of the Mother of Mercy, it must have its root in universal divine love for all who are there, belabored and burdened. ~ Edith Stein
2012
The true Christian is not obliged to renounce the things of this world or to lessen his natural abilities. On the contrary, inasmuch as he incorporates them into his normal life in a disciplined manner, he develops and perfects them; he thereby ennobles the natural life itself, supplying efficacious values to it not only of the spiritual and eternal world but also of the material and earthly world.
~ Edith Stein ~
2013
The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's own life in order to make room for God's life.
~ Edith Stein ~
2014
The cause of human sectarianism is not lack of sympathy in thought, but in speech; and this it is our not unambitious design to remedy.
~ Aleister Crowley ~
2015
Intolerance is evidence of impotence.
~ Aleister Crowley ~
2016
And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you: for on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever. And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest’s office in his father’s stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments: and he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation. And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year.
~ Book of Leviticus ~
2017
Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales. … Knowing nothing and fearing everything, they rant and rave and riot like so many maniacs. The subject does not matter. Any idea which gives them an excuse of getting excited will serve. They look for a victim to chivy, and howl him down, and finally lynch him in a sheer storm of sexual frenzy which they honestly imagine to be moral indignation, patriotic passion or some equally avowable emotion.
~ Aleister Crowley ~
2018
The imperturbability of the Church resides in her ability to harmonize the unconditional preservation of eternal truths with an unmatchable elasticity of adjustment to the circumstances and challenges of changing times.
~ Edith Stein ~
2019
What we need to make our first and primary task is — and where our struggle ought to concentrate on — is upon ourselves. We have to cleanse our thoughts from hatred; different political views and religion are our blessings, we have to conduct them with love. Even if there are disagreements arising from our differences, we should side with justice rather than injustice and correct our moral lenses. Justice should be our main principle; love and respect for all human beings ought to be our moral compass. This is our eternal job that cannot be completed and a work that needs to be always performed. It is our lifelong assignment.
~ Abiy Ahmed ~
2020
To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.
I have been accused of being a "black magician." No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it.
~ Aleister Crowley ~
2021
If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.
~ Luciano Pavarotti ~
2022
I'd like to be remembered as somebody who entertained — who took one out of oneself — for a few minutes, a few hours — transported you into a different venue — gave you relief, gave you entertainment, and gave you joy and laughter — and tears — all those things. I would like to be remembered as somebody who was — capable — of doing that.
~ Angela Lansbury ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of her recent death.
2023
No one can ever forget what the terrorists did in Israel. Thousands of missiles against peaceful cities. Shooting people in cars on the roads. Men, women, children. No one was spared. Streets covered in blood. Hostages. The terrorists themselves gave the world footage of the atrocities, and were proud of them. Women who were beaten. Elderly people who were kidnapped from their homes. Abducted children. And we do not yet know how many people were captured and brutally taken away by the terrorists. They even tried to humiliate the dead by mocking their bodies.
We saw all of this in Israel.
And the Israelis themselves — Israeli journalists who were here in Ukraine, who were in Bucha, are now saying that they saw the same evil where Russia came. The same evil, and the only difference is that there is a terrorist organization that attacked Israel, and here is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine. The intentions declared are different, but the essence is the same. You see it. You see the same blood on the streets. You see the same civilian cars shot up. You see the same bodies of people who have been tortured.
~ Volodymyr Zelenskyy ~
2024
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.
~ Norwegian Nobel Committee ~
2025
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2003
Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. ~ Linus Torvalds
  • selected by IP 68.227.198.159
2004
Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't. ~ Richard Bach
2005
Forgive us the breach of positive commands and negative commands, whether or not they involve an act, whether or not they are known to us. ~ Liturgy for Yom Kippur (begins the night of the 12th)
2006
If you ever get trial by television or guilt by accusation, that day freedom dies because you have not had it done with all of the careful rules that have developed in a court of law. Press and television rely on freedom. Those who rely on freedom must uphold the rule of law and have a duty and a responsibility to do so and not try to substitute their own system for it. ~ Margaret Thatcher (born 13 October 1925).
2007
I'm always astounded at the way we automatically look at what divides and separates us. We never look at what people have in common. If you see it, black and white people, both sides look to see the differences, they don't look at what they have together. Men and women, and old and young, and so on. And this is a disease of the mind, the way I see it. ~ Doris Lessing (recent Nobel Prize winner for Literature)
2008
I think it's a disgrace for the international community that we have allowed so many conflicts to become frozen, and we are not making a serious effort to solve them. ~ Martti Ahtisaari (recent winner of the Nobel Peace prize of 2008)
2009
The practical reason for freedom is that freedom seems to be the only condition under which any kind of substantial moral fiber can be developed — we have tried law, compulsion and authoritarianism of various kinds, and the result is nothing to be proud of. ~ Albert Jay Nock (born 13 October 1873)
2010
In every civilization, however generally prosaic, however addicted to the short-time point of view on human affairs, there are always certain alien spirits who, while outwardly conforming to the requirements of the civilization around them, still keep a disinterested regard for the plain intelligible law of things, irrespective of any practical end. They have an intellectual curiosity, sometimes touched with emotion, concerning the august order of nature; they are impressed by the contemplation of it, and like to know as much about it as they can, even in circumstances where its operation is ever so manifestly unfavourable to their best hopes and wishes. ~ Albert Jay Nock
2011
Get up in one of our industrial centres today and say that two and two make four, and if there is any financial interest concerned in maintaining that two and two make five, the police will bash your head in. ~ Albert Jay Nock
2012
I write from instinct, from inexplicable sparkle. I don't know why I'm writing what I'm writing. Usually, I sit and I let my hands wander on my guitar. And I sing anything. I play anything. And I wait till I come across a pleasing accident. Then I start to develop it. Once you take a piece of musical information, there are certain implications that it automatically contains — the implication of that phrase elongated, contracted, or inverted or in another time signature. So you start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes.
~ Paul Simon ~
2013
When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all
I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
~ Paul Simon ~
2014
Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates.
The earth is blue.
And everything about it is a love song.
Everything about it.
~ Paul Simon ~
2015
The nature and intention of government … are social. Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
~ Albert Jay Nock ~
2016
It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.
~ Margaret Thatcher ~
2017
In any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those — dead sure, as our phrase is — but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else. You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you. Except for these two certainties, working for the Remnant means working in impenetrable darkness; and this, I should say, is just the condition calculated most effectively to pique the interest of any prophet who is properly gifted with the imagination, insight and intellectual curiosity necessary to a successful pursuit of his trade.
~ Albert Jay Nock ~
2018
When I speak of the fear, intimidation, arrests and public shaming of intellectuals and religious leaders who dare to speak their minds, and then I tell you that I’m from Saudi Arabia, are you surprised?
~ Jamal Khashoggi ~
2019
It was painful for me several years ago when several friends were arrested. I said nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my family.
I have made a different choice now. I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot. I want you to know that Saudi Arabia has not always been as it is now. We Saudis deserve better.
~ Jamal Khashoggi ~
2020
The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices. We suffer from poverty, mismanagement and poor education. Through the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face.
~ Jamal Khashoggi ~
2021
The conservative is a person who considers very closely every chance, even the longest, of "throwing out the baby with the bath-water," as the German proverb puts it, and who determines his conduct accordingly. And so we see that the term conservative has little value as a label; in fact, one might say that its label-value varies inversely with one's right to wear it.
~ Albert Jay Nock ~
2022

Prayers offered in times of peace are silent conversations,
Appeals for love, or love's release, in private invocations

But all that is changed now.
Gone like a memory from the day before the fires.
People hungry for the voice of God
Hear lunatics and liars.

Wartime prayers. Wartime prayers
In every language spoken.
For every family scattered and broken.

~ Paul Simon ~
2023
As many here know, Hamas launched its attack on Simchat Torah. This is the day that Jews celebrate finishing the reading of the Torah. This Saturday, Jews around the world will chant the first words of the book of Genesis. They’ll read that in the beginning, there was darkness; and then there was light. That the first person was alone until a partner joined them.
I’m standing here today alongside our Israeli friends and all those who reject terror to help find the glimmers of light, even in this moment of deep darkness, and to make clear as that as long as there’s a United States, Israel will never be alone.
~ Antony Blinken ~
2024
For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions.
~ Margaret Thatcher ~
2025

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2004
It is better to debate a question without deciding it than to decide it without debate. ~ Joseph Joubert
2005
love is the every only god ~ E. E. Cummings (born 14 October 1894)
2006
I am totally convinced from my experience of working with poor people that they can get themselves out of poverty if we give them the same or similar opportunities we give to others. The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world — all we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them. ~ Muhammad Yunus (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006)
2007
There's an old African proverb that says "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." We have to go far — quickly. And that means we have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing, and why we have to work to solve it. ~ Al Gore (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize of 2007)
2008
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower (born 14 October 1890)
2009
Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity. ~ Hannah Arendt
2010
We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. We must acquire proficiency in defense and display stamina in purpose.
We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
2011
Art is a mystery.
A mystery is something immeasurable.
In so far as every child and woman and man may be immeasurable, art is the mystery of every man and woman and child. In so far as a human being is an artist, skies and mountains and oceans and thunderbolts and butterflies are immeasurable; and art is every mystery of nature. Nothing measurable can be alive; nothing which is not alive can be art; nothing which cannot be art is true: and everything untrue doesn’t matter a very good God damn... ~ E. E. Cummings
2012
seeming's enough for slaves of space and time

— ours is the now and here of freedom. Come

~ E. E. Cummings ~
2013
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel …
the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
~ E. E. Cummings ~
2014
Love is indeed Heaven upon Earth; since Heaven above would not be Heaven without it: For where there is not Love, there is Fear: But perfect Love casts out Fear.
~ William Penn ~
2015
Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.
~ Katherine Mansfield ~
2016
Character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but I would say character is really integrity. When you delegate something to a subordinate, for example, it is absolutely your responsibility, and he must understand this. You as a leader must take complete responsibility for what the subordinate does. I once said, as a sort of wisecrack, that leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
2017
No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice. … No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations. … Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. ~
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
2018
Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance.
~ Hannah Arendt ~
2019
All of us have heard this term "preventative war" since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time … I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
2020
The supreme quality for a leader is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. If a man's associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
2021
What you have given me, is the most profound experience I could imagine. I’m so filled with emotion, about what’s just happened — it’s extraordinary. It’s extraordinary.
I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now — I don’t want to lose it. It’s so … so much larger than me and life and it hasn’t got anything to do with the little green planet and the blue orb — it has to do with the enormity — at the quickness and the suddenness of life and death and then — oh my God!
~ William Shatner ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard of his becoming the oldest human to have as yet travelled into outer space.
2022
Our duty today is to our country and our children and our constitution. We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion, and every American is entitled to those answers — so we can act now to protect our republic. So this afternoon, I am offering this resolution: that the committee direct the chairman to issue a subpoena for relevant documents and testimony under oath from Donald John Trump in connection with the January 6th attack on the United States Capital.
~ Liz Cheney ~
  • proposed by Kalki; recent remarks on significant current and historic events.
2023
The hand of the aggressor is stayed by strength — and strength alone.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
2024
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
2025
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2004
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. ~ Margaret Mead
2005
Behold the believers of all beliefs! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker — he, however, is the creator. Companions, the creator seeketh, not corpses — and not herds or believers either. Fellow-creators the creator seeketh — those who grave new values on new tables. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (born 15 October 1844)
2006
In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith (born 15 October 1908)
2007
Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
2008
A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I've put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
2009
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
2010
When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise — to deny the political character of the modern corporation — is not merely to avoid the reality. It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that disguise are the students who instruct in error. Let there be no question: economics, so long as it is thus taught, becomes, however unconsciously, a part of the arrangement by which the citizen or student is kept from seeing how he or she is, or will be, governed. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
2011
The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
2012
There are no facts, only interpretations.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
2013

Facilis descensus Averni:
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras.
hoc opus, hic labor est.

The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.

~ Virgil ~
with translation by
~ John Dryden ~
2014
Omnia vincit Amor et nos cedamus Amori.
Love conquers all and we must yield to Love.
~ Virgil ~
2015
I wonder why some people tend to see science as something which takes man away from God. As I look at it, the path of science can always wind through the heart. For me, science has always been the path to spiritual enrichment and self-realisation.
~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam ~
2016
This is my belief: that through difficulties and problems God gives us the opportunity to grow. So when your hopes and dreams and goals are dashed, search among the wreckage, you may find a golden opportunity hidden in the ruins.
~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam ~
2017
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith ~
2018
Money is a singular thing. It ranks with love as man's greatest source of joy. And with death as his greatest source of anxiety. Over all history it has oppressed nearly all people in one of two ways: either it has been abundant and very unreliable, or reliable and very scarce.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith ~
2019
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith ~
2020
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith ~
2021
The best way to win was to not need to win. The best performances are accomplished when you are relaxed and free of doubt.
~ Abdul Kalam ~
2022
People are the common denominator of progress … no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith ~
2023
Few things in life can be so appalling as the difference between a dry antiseptic statement of a principle by a well spoken man in a quiet office, and what happens to people when that principle is put into practice.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith ~
2024
The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Nothing endures but change. ~ Heraclitus
2005
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. ~ Oscar Wilde (born 16 October 1854)
2006
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. ~ Oscar Wilde
2007
If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out. ~ Oscar Wilde
2008
The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth. ~ William O. Douglas
2009
The struggle is always between the individual and his sacred right to express himself and the power structure that seeks conformity, suppression, and obedience. ~ William O. Douglas
2010
The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected. ~ William O. Douglas
2011
In many matters children — not ensnared by dogmatism, passion, or erudition — judge far truer than adults. ~ Adolf Freiherr Knigge
2012
The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.
~ Hugh Latimer ~
2013
None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before you realize it, and once they're done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever.
~ Eugene O'Neill ~
2014
Supposing I was to tell you that it's just Beauty that's calling me, the beauty of the far off and unknown, the mystery and spell of the East which lures me in the books I've read, the need of the freedom of great wide spaces, the joy of wandering on and on — in quest of the secret which is hidden over there, beyond the horizon?
~ Eugene O'Neill ~
2015
Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
~ Oscar Wilde ~
in
~ The Picture of Dorian Gray ~
2016
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
~ Oscar Wilde ~
in
~ The Picture of Dorian Gray ~
2017
As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
~ William O. Douglas ~
2018
One may not give one's soul to a devil of hate — and remain forever scatheless.
~ Eugene O'Neill ~
2019
These days I see America identified more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation interested only in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations. We need a faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves or our possessions. Only if we have that faith will we be able to guide the destiny of nations in this the most critical period of world history.
~ William O. Douglas ~
2020
I listen to people talking about this universal breakdown we are in and I marvel at their stupid cowardice. It is so obvious that they deliberately cheat themselves because their fear of change won't let them face the truth. They don't want to understand what has happened to them. All they want is to start the merry-go-round of blind greed all over again. They no longer know what they want this country to be, what they want it to become, where they want it to go. It has lost all meaning for them except as pig-wallow. And so their lives as citizens have no beginnings, no ends. They have lost the ideal of the Land of the Free. Freedom demands initiative, courage, the need to decide what life must mean to oneself. To them, that is terror. They explain away their spiritual cowardice by whining that the time for individualism is past, when it is their courage to possess their own souls which is dead — and stinking! No, they don't want to be free. Slavery means security — of a kind, the only kind they have courage for. It means they need not to think. They have only to obey orders from owners who are, in turn, their slaves!
~ Eugene O'Neill ~
2021
We can begin to create new goals for ourselves, ends for our days! A new discipline for life will spring into being, a new will and power to live, a new ideal to measure the value of our lives by! … We need a new leader who will teach us that ideal, who by his life will exemplify it and make it a living truth for us — a man who will prove that man's fleeting life in time and space can be noble. We need, above all, to learn again to believe in the possibility of nobility of spirit in ourselves!
~ Eugene O'Neill ~
2022
All power tends to develop into a government in itself. Power that controls the economy should be in the hands of elected representatives of the people, not in the hands of an industrial oligarchy. Industrial power should be decentralized. It should be scattered into many hands so that the fortunes of the people will not be dependent on the whim or caprice, the political prejudices, the emotional stability of a few self-appointed men.
~ William O. Douglas ~
2023
A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purposes when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.
~ William O. Douglas ~
2024
Question not, but live and labour
Till yon goal be won,
Helping every feeble neighbour,
 Seeking help from none;
Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.
~ Adam Lindsay Gordon ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

  • As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. ~ Oscar Wilde
2003
Sex is only dirty if it's done right. ~ Woody Allen
  • selected by IP 195.100.67.10
2004
Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try. ~ "Yoda" in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
2005
Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El — they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. ~ Marlon Brando as "Jor-El" in Superman: The Movie
2006
Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets. ~ Arthur Miller (born 17 October 1915)
2007
My conception of the audience is of a public each member of which is carrying about with him what he thinks is an anxiety, or a hope, or a preoccupation which is his alone and isolates him from mankind; and in this respect at least the function of a play is to reveal him to himself so that he may touch others by virtue of the revelation of his mutuality with them. If only for this reason I regard the theater as a serious business, one that makes or should make man more human, which is to say, less alone. ~ Arthur Miller
2008
There's too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man, rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than letting him go. It's part of the whole ideology of this age, which is power-mad. ~ Arthur Miller
2009
An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted. ~ Arthur Miller
2010
The law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects.

~ William Scott

2011
You will travel far, my little Kal-El. But we will never leave you … even in the face of our deaths … the richness of our lives shall be yours. All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel … all this, and more … I bequeath you, my son. You will carry me inside you all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own, and see my life through your own eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father, and the father the son. This is all I can send you, Kal-El.

~ Marlon Brando ~
as "Jor-El" in
Superman: The Movie

2012
By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2013
The job is to ask questions — it always was — and to ask them as inexorably as I can. And to face the absence of precise answers with a certain humility.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2014
The philosopher places himself at the summit of thought; from there he views what the world has been and what it must become. He is not just an observer, he is an actor; he is an actor of the highest kind in a moral world because it is his opinion of what the world must become that regulates society.
~ Henri de Saint-Simon ~
2015
You cannot make children learn music or anything else without to some degree converting them into will-less adults. You fashion them into accepters of the status quo – a good thing for a society that needs obedient sitters at dreary desks, standers in shops, mechanical catchers of the 8:30 suburban train – a society, in short, that is carried on the shabby shoulders of the scared little man – the scared-to-death conformist.
~ A. S. Neill ~
2016
Poetry, as nearly as I can understand it, is a statement in words about a human experience, whether the experience be real or hypothetical, major or minor; but it is a statement of a particular kind. Words are symbols for concepts, and the philosopher or scientist endeavors as far as may be to use them with reference to nothing save their conceptual content. Most words, however, connote feelings and perceptions, and the poet, like the writer of imaginative prose, endeavors to use them with reference not only to their denotations but to their connotations as well. Such writers endeavor to communicate not only concepts, arranged, presumably, either in rational order or in an order of apprehensible by the rational mind, but the feeling or emotion which the rational content ought properly to arouse.
~ Yvor Winters ~
2017
The Crucible became by far my most frequently produced play, both abroad and at home. Its meaning is somewhat different in different places and moments. I can almost tell what the political situation in a country is when the play is suddenly a hit there — it is either a warning of tyranny on the way or a reminder of tyranny just past.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2018
A play is made by sensing how the forces in life simulate ignorance — you set free the concealed irony, the deadly joke.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2019
It is always and forever the same struggle: to perceive somehow our own complicity with evil is a horror not to be borne. … much more reassuring to see the world in terms of totally innocent victims and totally evil instigators of the monstrous violence we see all about us. At all costs, never disturb our innocence. But what is the most innocent place in any country? Is it not the insane asylum? These people drift through life truly innocent, unable to see into themselves at all. The perfection of innocence, indeed, is madness.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2020
The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy. Where pathos rules, where pathos is finally derived, a character has fought a battle he could not possibly have won. The pathetic is achieved when the protagonist is, by virtue of his witlessness, his insensitivity, or the very air he gives off, incapable of grappling with a much superior force.
Pathos truly is the mode for the pessimist. But tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible. And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief — optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2021
I cannot write anything that I understand too well. If I know what something means to me, if I have already come to the end of it as an experience, I can't write it because it seems a twice-told tale. I have to astonish myself, and that of course is a very costly way of going about things, because you can go up a dead end and discover that it's beyond your capacity to discover some organism underneath your feeling, and you're left simply with a formless feeling which is not itself art. It's inexpressible and one must leave it until it is hardened and becomes something that has form and has some possibility of being communicated. It might take a year or two or three or four to emerge.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2022
The task of the real intellectual consists of analyzing illusions in order to discover their causes.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2023
Be grateful for the highs — and be grateful for the lows — 'cause it's in the lows where you learn.
~ Suzanne Somers ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of her recent death.
2024
I don't know a critic who penetrates the center of anything.
~ Arthur Miller ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
2004
These children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through... ~ David Bowie
2005
We take the position that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. ~ Pierre Trudeau (born 18 October 1919)
  • proposed by IP 65.110.28.95 (originally for September 28)
2006
Give me my freedom for as long as I be
All I ask of livin' is to have no chains on me
All I ask of livin' is to have no chains on me
And all I ask of dyin' is to go naturally...
And when I die, and when I'm gone
There'll be one child born, in our world
To carry on, to carry on...
~ Laura Nyro ~
2007
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith
2008
The essential ingredient of politics is timing. ~ Pierre Trudeau
2009
Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find his own. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith
2010
To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it. ~ Herman Melville, in Moby-Dick (first published 18 October 1851)
2011
I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him. ~ Herman Melville, in Moby-Dick (first published 18 October 1851)
2012
Not one man in five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any one of them. Appreciation! Recognition! Is Jove appreciated? Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of his great allegory — the world? Then we pigmies must be content to have our paper allegories but ill comprehended.
~ Herman Melville ~
in
~ Moby-Dick ~
2013
Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.
~ Herman Melville ~
in
~ Moby-Dick ~
2014
Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I.
~ Herman Melville ~
in
~ Moby-Dick ~
2015
Of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order.
~ Herman Melville ~
in
~ Moby-Dick ~
2016
The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshipped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.
~ Pierre Trudeau ~
2017
A country, after all, is not something you build as the pharaohs built the pyramids, and then leave standing there to defy eternity. A country is something that is built every day out of certain basic shared values.
~ Pierre Trudeau ~
2018
The attainment of a just society is the cherished hope of civilized men.
~ Pierre Trudeau ~
2019
When the history books are written about this tumultuous era, I want them to show that I was among those in the House of Representatives who stood up to lawlessness and tyranny.
~ Elijah Cummings ~
2020
As against the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith, there has to be a visible hand of politicians whose objective is to have the kind of society that is caring and humane.
I worked to put this view of social justice into effect throughout my years in office.
~ Pierre Trudeau ~
2021
I must say that "Give Peace a Chance" has always seemed to me to be sensible advice.
~ Pierre Trudeau ~
2022
"I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
~ Herman Melville ~
in
~ Moby-Dick ~
2023
Even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.
~ Herman Melville ~
in
~ Moby-Dick ~
2024
War is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee.
~ Herman Melville ~
in
~ Moby-Dick ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2003
I really believe that if there's any kind of God, he wouldn't be in any one of us — not you, not me, but just this space in between. If there's some magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone else, sharing something. ~ Before Sunrise
2004
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~ George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four
2005
Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past. ~ Lewis Mumford (born 19 October 1895)
2006
There is surely a piece of divinity within us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. ~ Thomas Browne (born 19 October 1605)
2007
Nothing is unthinkable, nothing impossible to the balanced person, provided it comes out of the needs of life and is dedicated to life's further development. ~ Lewis Mumford
2008
To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. ~ Thomas Browne
2009
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
2010
The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon. ~ Lewis Mumford (date of birth)
2011
Every writer wants to be believed. But every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic. ~ John le Carré
2012
Man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the Grave. Solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre. Nor ommiting Ceremonies of Bravery in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible Sun within us.
~ Thomas Browne ~
2013
I intend no Monopoly but a Community in Learning: I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves.
~ Thomas Browne ~
2014
The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible.
~ Thomas Browne ~
2015
I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with me in that, from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent myself.
~ Thomas Browne ~
2016
Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.
~ Thomas Browne ~
2017
The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing.
~ Leigh Hunt ~
2018
In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success — if you are willing to learn from it.
~ Paul Allen ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
2019
In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, in every confrontation that has come my way, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.
~ John le Carré ~
2020
There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.
~ Thomas Browne ~
2021
Success ultimately rests on small things, lots of small things. Leaders have to have a feel for small things — a feel for what is going in in the depths of an organization where small things reside. The more senior you become, the more you are isolated by pomp and staff, and the harder and more necessary it becomes to know what is going on six floors down. One way is to leave the top floor and its grand accoutrements and get down into the bowels for real. Don't tell anyone you are coming.
~ Colin Powell ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard of his recent death.
2022
There are two worlds: the world that we can measure with line and rule, and the world we feel with our hearts and imagination.
~ Leigh Hunt ~
2023
I would die happy if I knew that on my tombstone could be written these words, "This man was an absolute fool. None of the disastrous things that he reluctantly predicted ever came to pass!".
~ Lewis Mumford ~
2024

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men."

The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!

~ Leigh Hunt ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. ~ Leo Tolstoy
2005
I think for it to be unhip to be idealistic is weird, you know? I mean, even all the best rebels to me had some sense of hope in them. ~ Tom Petty (born 20 October 1950)
2006
We sometimes talk as if "original research" were a peculiar prerogative of scientists or at least of advanced students. But all thinking is research, and all research is native, original, with him who carries it on, even if everybody else in the world already is sure of what he is still looking for. ~ John Dewey (born 20 October 1859)
2007
I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing.
~ Tom Petty ~
2008

We're overdue for a dream come true.
Long time nothing new.
We're overdue for a dream come true.

~ Tom Petty ~

2009
Gonna stand my ground, won't be turned around
and I'll keep this world from draggin' me down
gonna stand my ground and I won't back down.
~ Tom Petty ~
2010
I say one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet makes himself a seer by an immense, long, deliberate derangement of all the senses. ~ Arthur Rimbaud
2011
Knowledge is humanistic in quality not because it is about human products in the past, but because of what it does in liberating human intelligence and human sympathy. Any subject matter which accomplishes this result is humane, and any subject matter which does not accomplish it is not even educational. ~ John Dewey
2012 & 2013 (mistakenly used twice)
A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability. Otherwise, they will be overwhelmed by the changes in which they are caught and whose significance or connections they do not perceive.
~ John Dewey ~
2014
The revelation of the Divine Reality hath everlastingly been identical with its concealment and its concealment identical with its revelation. That which is intended by "Revelation of God" is the Tree of divine Truth that betokeneth none but Him, and it is this divine Tree that hath raised and will raise up Messengers, and hath revealed and will ever reveal Scriptures. From eternity unto eternity this Tree of divine Truth hath served and will ever serve as the throne of the revelation and concealment of God among His creatures, and in every age is made manifest through whomsoever He pleaseth.
~ The Báb ~
2015
Those who have deprived themselves of this Resurrection by reason of their mutual hatreds or by regarding themselves to be in the right and others in the wrong, were chastised on the Day of Resurrection by reason of such hatreds evinced during their night. Thus they deprived themselves of beholding the countenance of God, and this for no other reason than mutual denunciations.
~ The Báb ~
2016
Denounce ye not one another, ere the Day-Star of ancient eternity shineth forth above the horizon of His sublimity. We have created you from one tree and have caused you to be as the leaves and fruit of the same tree, that haply ye may become a source of comfort to one another. Regard ye not others save as ye regard your own selves, that no feeling of aversion may prevail amongst you so as to shut you out from Him Whom God shall make manifest on the Day of Resurrection. It behooveth you all to be one indivisible people; thus should ye return unto Him Whom God shall make manifest.
~ The Báb ~
2017

I'm watching the water
Watching the coast
Suddenly I know
What I want the most

And I want to tell you
Still I hold back
I need some time
Get my life on track.

I know that look on your face
But there's somethin' lucky about this place
And there's somethin' good comin'
For you and me
Somethin' good comin'
There has to be.

~ Tom Petty ~
2018
I know so well the look on your face
And there's somethin' lucky about this place
There's somethin' good comin'
Just over the hill
Somethin' good comin'
I know it will

And I'm in for the long run
Wherever it goes
Ridin' the river
Wherever it goes.

~ Tom Petty ~
2019
The most acceptable prayer is the one offered with the utmost spirituality and radiance; its prolongation hath not been and is not beloved by God. The more detached and the purer the prayer, the more acceptable is it in the presence of God.
~ The Báb ~
2020
From all eternity I have indeed recognized Thee and unto all eternity will ever do so through Thine Own Self and not through any one else besides Thee. Verily Thou art the Source of all knowledge, the Omniscient. From everlasting I have besought and unto everlasting will beseech forgiveness for my limited understanding of Thee, aware as I am that there is no God but Thee, the All-Glorious, the Almighty.
~ The Báb ~
2021
On the Day of Resurrection God will ask everyone of his understanding and not of his following in the footsteps of others. How often a person, having inclined his ears to the holy verses, would bow down in humility and would embrace the Truth, while his leader would not do so. Thus every individual must bear his own responsibility, rather than someone else bearing it for him.
~ The Báb ~
2022
Consider with due attention, for the path is very strait, even while it is more spacious than the heavens and the earth and what is between them.
~ The Báb ~
2023
Well I fought for you;
I fought too hard.
To do it all again babe,
It's gone too far.
~ Tom Petty ~

`

2024
It is found again.
What? Eternity.
It is the sea
Gone with the sun.
~ Arthur Rimbaud ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
It doesn't matter if we were down 3-0. You've just got to keep the faith. The game is not over until the last out. ~ David Ortiz
2005
Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration. ~ Thomas Alva Edison (tested first practical light bulb 21 October 1879)
2006

He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~

2007
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
2008
You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin
2009
Should children be permitted to read Romances, & Relations of Giants & Magicians, & Genii? — I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in the affirmative. — I know no other way of giving the mind a love of "the Great," & "the Whole." — Those who have been led by the same truths step by step thro' the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to want a sense which I possess — They contemplate nothing but parts — and all parts are necessarily little — and the Universe to them is but a mass of little things. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
2010
If we must all agree, all work together, we're no better than a machine. If an individual can't work in solidarity with his fellows, it's his duty to work alone. His duty and his right. We have been denying people that right. We've been saying, more and more often, you must work with the others, you must accept the rule of the majority. But any rule is tyranny. The duty of the individual is to accept no rule, to be the initiator of his own acts, to be responsible. Only if he does so will the society live, and change, and adapt, and survive. We are not subjects of a State founded upon law, but members of a society founded upon revolution. Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, in The Dispossessed
2011
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
~ Robert Frost ~
2012
To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.
~ Alphonse de Lamartine ~
2013
It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin ~
2014
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
2015
Veracity does not consist in saying, but in the intention of communicating truth.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
2016
All knowledge is local, all truth is partial. … No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge. … Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot get back to seeing the part as the whole.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin ~
2017
The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power, to which I would exclusively appropriate the name of Imagination.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
2018
It is of the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass, It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin ~
2019
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
2020
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
in
~ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ~
2021
Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction — you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin ~
2022
I came into office at a time of great economic and international instability.
Families and businesses were worried about how to pay their bills.
Putin's illegal war in Ukraine threatens the security of our whole continent.
And our country had been held back for too long by low economic growth.
I was elected by the Conservative Party with a mandate to change this.
We delivered on energy bills and on cutting national insurance.
And we set out a vision for a low tax, high growth economy — that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit.
I recognise though, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.
I have therefore spoken to His Majesty The King to notify him that I am resigning as Leader of the Conservative Party.
~ Liz Truss ~
2023
Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
2024
True myth may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blond Hero — really look — and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. “You must change your life,” he said. When true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin ~
2025
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2004
There’s a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost, that the ship has sailed, and that only a fool would continue. The truth is, I’ve always been a fool. ~ Albert Finney as "Ed Bloom" in Big Fish
2005
I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether caffeine or LSD. And drugs are not central to my life. ~ Timothy Leary (born 22 October 1920)
2006
All political movements are like this — we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility. ~ Doris Lessing (born 22 October 1919)
2007
Think for yourself and question authority. ~ Timothy Leary
2008
I often observed to my brother, You see now how little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external things; And I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul finds pleasure in a path strewed with briars and thorns. ~ Daniel Boone
2009
If you want to change the way people respond to you, change the way you respond to people. ~ Timothy Leary
2010
Individual societies begin in harmonious adaptation to the environment and, like individuals, quickly get trapped into nonadaptive, artificial, repetitive sequences.
When the individual's behavior and consciousness get hooked to a routine sequence of external actions, he is a dead robot, and it is time for him to die and be reborn. Time to "drop out," "turn on," and "tune in." This period of robotization is called the Kali Yuga, the Age of Strife and Empire…
~ Timothy Leary ~
2011
I've opened the way for others to make fortunes, but a fortune for myself was not what I was after. ~ Daniel Boone
2012
To describe externals, you become a scientist. To describe experience, you become an artist. The old distinction between artists and scientists must vanish. Every time we teach a child correct usage of an external symbol, we must spend as much time teaching him how to fission and reassemble external grammar to communicate the internal.
~ Timothy Leary ~
2013
Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.
~ Doris Lessing ~
2014
Diwali is celebrated on the darkest night of the year when the necessity and the beauty of lights can be truly appreciated. Light is a symbol in the world's religions for God, truth and wisdom.
Given the antiquity of India, the diversity of its religious traditions and the interaction among these, it should not surprise us to know that many religious communities celebrate Diwali. Each one offers a distinctive reason for the celebration that enriches its meaning. For every community, however, Diwali celebrates and affirms hope, and the triumph of goodness and justice over evil and injustice. These values define the meaning of Diwali.
~ Anantanand Rambachan ~
2015
We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.
~ Doris Lessing ~
2016
Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this:
"You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society."
~ Doris Lessing ~
2017
What matters most is that we learn from living.
~ Doris Lessing ~
2018
Perfection is a costly flower and is cultured only by an uncompromising, strict husbandry.
~ Burton Rascoe ~
2019
That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.
~ Doris Lessing ~
2020
We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that to lock a sick person into solitary confinement makes him worse. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. … You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, we’ll put all our energies, all our talents into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind.
~ Doris Lessing ~
2021
God created Arrakis to train the faithful.
~ Frank Herbert ~
in
~ Dune ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard to opening day of major adaptation of Herbert's novel.
2022
In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.
~ Doris Lessing ~
2023
The universe is an intelligence test.
~ Timothy Leary ~
2024
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. ~ Maya Angelou
2005
Reality is always greater — much greater — than what we know, than whatever we can say about it. ~ Michael Crichton (born 23 October 1942)
2006
I am certain there is too much certainty in the world. ~ Michael Crichton
2007
Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. ~ Sarah Bernhardt
2008
We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget. ~ Sarah Bernhardt
2009
Once the curtain is raised, the actor ceases to belong to himself. He belongs to his character, to his author, to his public. He must do the impossible to identify himself with the first, not to betray the second, and not to disappoint the third. And to this end the actor must forget his personality and throw aside his joys and sorrows. He must present the public with the reality of a being who for him is only a fiction. With his own eyes, he must shed the tears of the other. With his own voice, he must groan the anguish of the other. His own heart beats as if it would burst, for it is the other's heart that beats in his heart. And when he retires from a tragic or dramatic scene, if he has properly rendered his character, he must be panting and exhausted. ~ Sarah Bernhardt
2010
The best doctors found a middle position where they were neither overwhelmed by their feelings nor estranged from them. That was the most difficult position of all, and the precise balance — neither too detached nor too caring — was something few learned. ~ Michael Crichton
2011
Life is short, even for those who live a long time, and we must live for the few who know and appreciate us, who judge and absolve us, and for whom we have the same affection and indulgence. The rest I look upon as a mere crowd, lively or sad, loyal or corrupt, from whom there is nothing to be expected but fleeting emotions, either pleasant or unpleasant, which leave no trace behind them. We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget. ~ Sarah Bernhardt
2012
In the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better.
~ Michael Crichton ~
2013
Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it.
~ George Saintsbury ~
2014
It is always darkest before the dawn.
~ Anonymous ~
2015
We shall not busy ourselves with what men ought to have admired, what they ought to have written, what they ought to have thought, but with what they did think, write, admire.
~ George Saintsbury ~
2016
If we are to be a great democracy, we must all take an active role in our democracy. We must do democracy. That goes far beyond simply casting your vote. We must all actively champion the causes that ensure the common good.
~ Martin Luther King III ~
2017
We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.
~ Michael Crichton ~
2018
The purpose of the I Ching or the tarot … is to help you get access to yourself, by providing ambiguity for you to interpret. And this quality of ambiguity is shared with nearly all forms of divination — cast artifacts, or entrails, or weather formations, or events such as the flight of birds, that one could choose either to see as "omens" or to ignore.
The very thing that makes these divination techniques seem so unscientific is what makes it possible for them to work.
~ Michael Crichton ~
in
~ Travels ~
2019
Science is a kind of glorified tailoring enterprise, a method for taking measurements that describe something — reality — that may not be understood at all.
~ Michael Crichton ~
in
~ Travels ~
2020
The conjuror or con man is a very good provider of information. He supplies lots of data, by inference or direct statement, but it's false data. Scientists aren't used to that scenario. An electron or a galaxy is not capricious, nor deceptive; but a human can be either or both.
~ James Randi ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard of his recent death.
2021
I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely emerges in another form. Even if you don't believe in God, you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
~ Michael Crichton ~
2022
We are all assumed, these days, to reside at one extreme of the opinion spectrum, or another. We are pro-abortion or anti-abortion. We are free traders or protectionist. We are pro-private sector or pro-big government. We are feminists or chauvinists. But in the real world, few of us hold these extreme views. There is instead a spectrum of opinion.
The extreme positions of the Crossfire Syndrome require extreme simplification — framing the debate in terms that ignore the real issues.
~ Michael Crichton ~
2023
The Book of History is the Bible of Irony.
~ George Saintsbury ~
2024
The doctor is not a miracle worker who can magically save us but, rather, an expert adviser who can assist us in our own recovery.
~ Michael Crichton ~
in
~ Travels ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. ~ Dorothy Thompson
2005
The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel. ~ Horace Walpole
2006
Poems present their testimony as circumstantial evidences, not as closing argument. Where Wallace Stevens says, “God and the imagination are one,” I would say that the imagination, which synergizes intellect, emotion and instinct, is the perceptive organ through which it is possible, though not inevitable, to experience God. ~ Denise Levertov (born 24 October 1923)
  • proposed by Fys
2007

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. …

I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings.

~ Denise Levertov ~

2008
We present a dramatically different approach to time management. This is a principle-centered approach. It transcends the traditional prescriptions of faster, harder, smarter, and more. Rather than offering you another clock, this approach provides you with a compass — because more important than how fast you're going, is where you're headed. ~ Stephen Covey
2009
A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence. ~ Stephen Covey
2010
Courage is not the absence of fear but the awareness that something else is more important. ~ Stephen Covey
2011
It was no longer sounds only that made the music:
he spoke, and as no tree listens I listened, and language
came into my roots
out of the earth,
into my bark
out of the air,
into the pores of my greenest shoots
gently as dew
and there was no word he sang but I knew its meaning.
~ Denise Levertov ~
2012
Praise
the invisible sun burning beyond
the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney's shadow.
~ Denise Levertov ~
2013
the poet, his presence
ursine and kind, shifting his weight in a chair too small
for him,
quietly says, and shyly: "The Poet
never must lose despair."
Then our eyes indeed
meet and hold.
All of us know, smiling
in common knowledge —
even the palest spirit among us, burdened
as he is with weight of abstractions —
all of us know he means
we mustn't, any of us, lose touch with the source,
pretend it's not there, cover over
the mineshaft of passion...
~ Denise Levertov ~
  • proposed by Fys
2014
Perhaps he will not return.
                                            But what we have lived
comes back to us.
                        We see more.
                                                We feel, as our rings increase,
something that lifts our branches, that stretches our furthest
                                                                                                    leaf-tips
further.
~ Denise Levertov ~
2015
Let natural consequences teach responsible behavior. One of the kindest things we can do is to let the natural or logical consequences of people's actions teach them responsible behavior. They may not like it or us, but popularity is a fickle standard by which to measure character development. Insisting on justice demands more true love, not less. We care enough for their growth and security to suffer their displeasure.
~ Stephen Covey ~
2016
To serve the people,
one must write for the ideal reader. Only for the ideal reader.
And who or what is that ideal reader? God. One must imagine,
One must deeply imagine
that great Attention
Only so,
In lonely dialog,
can one reach the people.
~ Denise Levertov ~
2017
Perform anonymous service. Whenever we do good for others anonymously, our sense of intrinsic worth and self-respect increases. … Selfless service has always been one of the most powerful methods of influence.
~ Stephen Covey ~
2018
The power to distinguish between person and performance and to communicate intrinsic worth flows naturally out of our own sense of intrinsic worth.
~ Stephen Covey ~
2019
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
~ Stephen Covey ~
2020
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
~ Stephen Covey ~
2021
Values are social norms — they're personal, emotional, subjective, and arguable. All of us have values. Even criminals have values. The question you must ask yourself is, Are your values based upon principles? In the last analysis, principles are natural laws — they're impersonal, factual, objective and self-evident. Consequences are governed by principles and behavior is governed by values; therefore, value principles!
~ Stephen Covey ~
2022
Prepare your mind and heart before you prepare your speech. What we say may be less important than how we say it.
~ Stephen Covey ~
2023
We don't invent our missions, we detect them.
~ Stephen Covey ~
2024
Principles are universal — that is, they transcend culture and geography. They're also timeless, they never change — principles such as fairness, kindness, respect, honesty, integrity, service, contribution. Different cultures may translate these principles into different practices and over time may even totally obscure these principles through the wrongful use of freedom. Nevertheless, they are present. Like the law of gravity, they operate constantly.
~ Stephen Covey ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. ~ John Wesley
2005
Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used. ~ Richard E. Byrd (born 25 October 1888)
2006
A man doesn't begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes that he is no longer indispensable. ~ Richard E. Byrd
2007
For out of olde feldes, as men seith,
Cometh al this new corn fro yeer to yere;
And out of olde bokes, in good feith,
Cometh al this newe science that men lere.
~ Geoffrey Chaucer ~
2008
I would prefer to remain in prison for another 20 years than bargain my beliefs for freedom. ~ Samir Geagea
2009

This day is call'd — the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and sees old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends,
And say, "To-morrow is Saint Crispian;"
Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,
And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words, —
Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd, —
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs'd, they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

King Henry V
as portrayed in
Henry V
by
~ William Shakespeare ~

2010

The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne.
Th’ assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge,
The dredful joye, alwey that slit so yerne;
Al this mene I be love.

~ Geoffrey Chaucer ~

2011
It is nought good a slepyng hound to wake. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
2012
Of studie took he most cure and most hede.
Noght o word spak he more than was nede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence.
Souninge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
~ Geoffrey Chaucer ~
2013
Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.
~ Thomas Macaulay ~
2014
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods,
And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?"
~ Thomas Babington Macaulay ~
2015
Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.
~ Max Stirner ~
2016
The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.
~ Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay ~
2017
The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted.
~ Henry Steele Commager ~
2018
If government, or those in positions of power and authority, can silence criticism by the argument that such criticism might be misunderstood somewhere, there is an end to all criticism, and perhaps an end to our kind of political system. For men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
~ Henry Steele Commager ~
2019
The greatest danger that threatens us is neither heterodox thought nor orthodox thought, but the absence of thought.
~ Henry Steele Commager ~
2020
Who are those who are really disloyal? Those who inflame racial hatreds, who sow religious and class dissensions. Those who subvert the Constitution by violating the freedom of the ballot box. Those who make a mockery of majority rule by the use of the filibuster. Those who impair democracy by denying equal educational facilities. Those who frustrate justice by lynch law or by making a farce of jury trials. Those who deny freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly. Those who press for special favors against the interest of the commonwealth. Those who regard public office as a source of private gain. Those who would exalt the military over the civil. Those who for selfish and private purposes stir up national antagonisms and expose the world to the ruin of war.
~ Henry Steele Commager ~
2021
Neither is there figurative and non-figurative art. All things appear to us in the shape of forms. Even in metaphysics ideas are expressed by forms, well then think how absurd it would be to think of painting without the imagery of forms. A figure, an object, a circle, are forms; they affect us more or less intensely.
~ Pablo Picasso ~
2022
I am humbled and honoured to have the support of my parliamentary colleagues and to be elected as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party.
It is the greatest privilege of my life, to be able to serve the party I love and give back to the country I owe so much to.
The United Kingdom is a great country, but there is no doubt we face a profound economic challenge.
We now need stability and unity and I will make it my utmost priority to bring our party and our country together.
Because that is the only way we will overcome the challenges we face and build a better, more prosperous future for our children and our grandchildren.
I pledge that I will serve you with integrity and humility. And I will work day in, day out to deliver for the British people.
~ Rishi Sunak ~
  • proposed by Kalki; recent statement on being chosen to head the Conservative Party, and to become the next Prime Minister of the UK.
2023
We do not protect freedom in order to indulge error. We protect freedom in order to discover truth.
~ Henry Steele Commager ~
2024
Half the confusion in the world comes from not knowing how little we need.
~ Richard E. Byrd ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
I'm not against God. I'm against the misuse of God. ~ Marilyn Manson
2005
I know that it will hurt, I know that it will break your heart, the way things are, and the way they've been. Don't spread the discontent, don't spread the lies, don't make the same mistakes with your own life. ~ "Break Your Heart" by Natalie Merchant (born 26 October 1963)
2006
The youth are not always right, but the society which ignores them and beats, is always wrong. ~ François Mitterrand (born 26 October 1916) on les événements of May 1968.
  • proposed by Fys
2007
Contempt loves the silence
it thrives in the dark
with fine winding tendrils
that strangle the heart.
~ Natalie Merchant ~
2008
After bread, education is the first need of the people. ~ Georges Danton (born 26 October 1759)
2009
Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements. ~ Napoleon Hill
2010
Strategy is a system of expedients; it is more than a mere scholarly discipline. It is the translation of knowledge to practical life, the improvement of the original leading thought in accordance with continually changing situations. ~ Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
2011
Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. ~ Napoleon Hill
2012
Have I been blind, have I been lost,
inside myself and my own mind;
hypnotized, mesmerized,
by what my eyes have seen?
~ Natalie Merchant ~
2013
The greatest achievements of men, were at first, nothing but dreams of the minds of men who knew that dreams are the seedlings of all achievements. A burning desire, to be and to do, is the starting point, from which the dreamer must take off.
~ Napoleon Hill ~
2014
these days you might feel a shaft of light
make its way across your face
and when you do
you'll know how it was meant to be
see the signs and know their meaning
~ Natalie Merchant ~
2015
There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, "I disagree."
~ Natalie Merchant ~
2016
O, I believe
fate smiled and destiny
laughed as she came to my cradle
know this child will be able
laughed as she came to my mother
know this child will not suffer
laughed as my body she lifted
know this child will be gifted
with love, with patience and with faith
she'll make her way
~ Natalie Merchant ~
2017
Ophelia was a cyclone, tempest
a god damned hurricane
your common sense
your best defense
lay wasted and in vain.
~ Natalie Merchant ~
2018
America needs every one of us to lend our energy, our talents, our ambition to making our nation better and stronger. I believe that with all my heart. That's why “Stronger Together” is not just a lesson from our history. It's not just a slogan for our campaign. It's a guiding principle for the country we've always been and the future we're going to build. A country where the economy works for everyone, not just those at the top. Where you can get a good job and send your kids to a good school, no matter what zip code you live in. A country where all our children can dream, and those dreams are within reach. Where families are strong… communities are safe… And yes, love trumps hate. That's the country we're fighting for. That's the future we're working toward.
~ Hillary Clinton ~
2019
As the history majors among you here today know all too well, when people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society. That is not hyperbole. It is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done. They attempt to control reality. Not just our laws and our rights and our budgets, but our thoughts and beliefs.
~ Hillary Clinton ~
2020
Simply caring is not enough. To drive real progress, you have to change both hearts and laws. You need both understanding and action.
~ Hillary Clinton ~
2021
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches.
~ Napoleon Hill ~
2022
I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects.
~ Napoleon Hill ~
2023
The anger, the hurt, the — the sense of outrage that the Israeli people are feeling after the brutally inflicted devastation by Hamas is completely understandable.
Israel has the right and, I would add, responsibility to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That’s a guarantee.
We also have to remember that Hamas does not represent the vast majority of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip or anywhere else.
Hamas is hiding behind Palestinian civilians, and it’s despicable and, not surprisingly, cowardly as well.
This also puts an added burden on Israel while they go after Hamas.
But that does not lessen the need for — to operate and align with the laws of war for Israeli — it has to do everything in its power — Israel has to do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians.
~ Joe Biden ~
2024
No one gets through life alone. We have to look out for each other and lift each other up.
~ Hillary Clinton ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious — fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance. ~ T. H. Huxley
2005
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat. ~ Theodore Roosevelt (born 27 October 1858)
2006
I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love's not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I'll ever have. And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time. ~ Sylvia Plath (born 27 October 1932)
2007
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
2008
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education. ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold
2009
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
~ Dylan Thomas ~
2010
No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
2011
Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club? Could the New Testament have been composed as a conference report? Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals. The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to the finger of Adam, whether it takes ultimate shape in a law of physics or a law of the land, a poem or a policy, a sonata or a mechanical computer. ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold
2012
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~ Dylan Thomas ~
2013
Our words must be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do actually make some progress in the right direction.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2014

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

~ Dylan Thomas ~
2015
We must recognize that it is a cardinal sin against democracy to support a man for public office because he belongs to a given creed or to oppose him because he belongs to a given creed. It is just as evil as to draw the line between class and class, between occupation and occupation in political life. No man who tries to draw either line is a good American. True Americanism demands that we judge each man on his conduct, that we so judge him in private life and that we so judge him in public life.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2016
An attitude of moderation is apt to be misunderstood when passions are greatly excited and when victory is apt to rest with the extremists on one side or the other; yet I think it is in the long run the only wise attitude...
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2017
We stand equally against government by a plutocracy and government by a mob. There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with "the money touch," but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2018
All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no matter in what way we may severally worship our Creator, must stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the elimination of race and religious prejudice. We must stand for a reign of equal justice to both big and small.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2019
The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities — all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2020
Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them. … If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2021
In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2022
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2023
There are good citizens and bad citizens in every class as in every locality, and the attitude of decent people toward great public and social questions should be determined, not by the accidental questions of employment or locality, but by those deep-set principles which represent the innermost souls of men.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
2024
It’s time to sing a new song. A song that began 248 years ago. The old notes of downfall, discord, despair, no longer resonate. Our generations of loved ones before us are whispering a prophecy, a quest, a calling, an anthem. Our moment right now. It’s time for America to sing a new song.
Our voices sing a chorus of unity. They sing a song of dignity and opportunity. Are y’all ready to add your voice to the new American song? Because I am. So let’s do this!
~ Beyoncé ~
  • proposed by Kalki; recent remarks on the current US presidential election. 
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
We're just being ourselves and having fun playing baseball. The biggest thing is when people look at our team, they can see that we're having a lot of fun. ~ Johnny Damon
2005
Life is an error-making and an error-correcting process, and nature in marking man's papers will grade him for wisdom as measured both by survival and by the quality of life of those who survive. ~ Jonas Salk (born 28 October 1914)
2006
The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish. ~ Evelyn Waugh (born 28 October 1903)
2007
I have dreams, and I have nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams. ~ Jonas Salk (date of birth)
2008
Walk a single path, becoming neither cocky with victory nor broken with defeat, without forgetting caution when all is quiet or becoming frightened when danger threatens. ~ Jigoro Kano
2009
The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more. ~ Jonas Salk (date of birth)
2010
Paradoxically, the man who has failed and one who is at the peak of success are in exactly the same position. Each must decide what he will do next, choose the course that will lead him to the future. ~ Jigoro Kano
2011
My attitude was always to keep open, to keep scanning. I think that's how things work in nature. Many people are close-minded, rigid, and that's not my inclination. ~ Jonas Salk
2012
Neither wisdom nor good will is now dominant. Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.
~ Jonas Salk ~
2013
I see the triumph of good over evil as a manifestation of the error-correcting process of evolution.
~ Jonas Salk ~
2014
I do what I feel impelled to do, as an artist would. Scientists function in the same way. I see all these as creative activities, as all part of the process of discovery. Perhaps that's one of the characteristics of what I call the evolvers, any subset of the population who keep things moving in a positive, creative, constructive way, revealing the truth and beauty that exists in life and in nature.
~ Jonas Salk ~
2015
Aesthetic value is often the by-product of the artist striving to do something else.
~ Evelyn Waugh ~
2016
Apply just the right amount of force — never too much, never too little. All of us know of people who have failed to accomplish what they set out to do because of not properly gauging the amount of effort required. At one extreme, they fall short of the mark; at the other, they do not know when to stop.
~ Jigoro Kano ~
2017
You made me cry,
when you said goodbye
Ain't that a shame
My tears fell like rain
Ain't that a shame
You're the one to blame
~ Fats Domino ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
2018
Some people might look at something and let it go by, because they don't recognize the pattern and the significance. It's the sensitivity to pattern recognition that seems to me to be of great importance. It's a matter of being able to find meaning, whether it's positive or negative, in whatever you encounter. It's like a journey. It's like finding the paths that will allow you to go forward, or that path that has a block that tells you to start over again or do something else.
~ Jonas Salk ~
2019
Last night, the United States brought the world's number one terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. He was the founder and leader of ISIS, the most ruthless and violent terror organization in the World. The United States has been searching for Baghdadi for many years. Capturing or killing Baghdadi has been the top national security priority of my Administration. U.S. Special Operations forces executed a dangerous and daring nighttime raid into Northwestern Syria to accomplish this mission.
~ Donald Trump ~
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to the recent special forces operation against ISIL.
2020
When I was a kid, the disaster we worried about most was a nuclear war. That’s why we had a barrel … down in our basement, filled with cans of food and water. When the nuclear attack came, we were supposed to go downstairs, hunker down, and eat out of that barrel. Today, the greatest risk of global catastrophe doesn’t look like this. … If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war. Not missiles, but microbes.
~ Bill Gates ~
2021
Carefully observe oneself and one's situation, carefully observe others, and carefully observe one's environment,
Seize the initiative in whatever you undertake,
Consider fully, act decisively,
Know when to stop,
Keep to the middle.
~ Kanō Jigorō ~
2022
I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.
~ Francis Bacon ~
2023
Some people are constructive … Others are destructive. It's this diversity in humankind that results in some making positive contributions and some negative contributions. It's necessary to have enough who make positive contributions to overcome the problems of each age.
~ Jonas Salk ~
2024
Reason alone will not serve. Intuition alone can be improved by reason, but reason alone without intuition can easily lead the wrong way. They both are necessary. The way I like to put it is that when I have an intuition about something, I send it over to the reason department. Then after I've checked it out in the reason department, I send it back to the intuition department to make sure that it's still all right. That's how my mind works, and that's how I work. That's why I think that there is both an art and a science to what we do. The art of science is as important as so-called technical science. You need both. It's this combination that must be recognized and acknowledged and valued.
~ Jonas Salk ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination. ~ John Schaar
2005
All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. ~ Muhammad
  • proposed by Kalki; in 2005, Laylat al-Qadr (The Night of Power) is traditionally celebrated on this night (as the start of the 27th of Ramadan in the Muslim calendar) by many Muslims.
2006
We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. ~ James Boswell
  • proposed by Fys
2007
This is a terrific outburst. And since it doesn’t have a tail right now, some observers have confused it with a nova. We’ve had at least two reports of a new star. ~ Brian G. Marsden (on the recent unprecedented brightening of Comet Holmes)
2008
He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it. ~ James Boswell (born 29 October 1740)
  • proposed by Fys
2009
No moral system can rest solely on authority. ~ Alfred Jules Ayer (born 29 October 1910)
2010
If you're a leader, you don't push wet spaghetti, you pull it. The U.S. Army still has to learn that. The British understand it. Patton understood it. I always admired Patton. Oh, sure, the stupid bastard was crazy. He was insane. He thought he was living in the Dark Ages. Soldiers were peasants to him. I didn't like that attitude, but I certainly respected his theories and the techniques he used to get his men out of their foxholes. ~ Bill Mauldin
2011
Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you? ~ Fanny Brice (born 29 October 1891)
2012
There is a certain nobility and dignity in combat soldiers and medical aid men with dirt in their ears. They are rough and their language gets coarse because they live a life stripped of convention and niceties. Their nobility and dignity come from the way they live unselfishly and risk their lives to help each other.
~ Bill Mauldin ~
2013
There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that it has shared the successes of all its rivals and that it has passed at least one test which they have failed.
~ Alfred Jules Ayer ~
2014
I saw a Divine Being. I'm afraid I'm going to have to revise all my various books and opinions.
~ Alfred Jules Ayer ~
2015
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
~ Jean Giraudoux ~
2016
One of my principles is, Thou shall not bully. The only answer is to muscle the bully. I'm very combative that way.
~ Bill Mauldin ~
2017
The American public highly overrates its sense of humor. We're great belly laughers and prat fallers, but we never really did have a real sense of humor. Not satire anyway. … When we realize finally that we aren't God's given children, we'll understand satire. Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery.
~ Bill Mauldin ~
2018
Take care that thou be not made a fool by flatterers, for even the wisest men are abused by these. Know, therefore, that flatterers are the worst kind of traitors; for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing; but so shadow and paint all thy vices and follies, as thou shalt never, by their will, discern evil from good, or vice from virtue. And, because all men are apt to flatter themselves, to entertain the additions of other men's praises is most perilous. Do not therefore praise thyself, except thou wilt be counted a vain-glorious fool; neither take delight in the praises of other men, except thou deserve it, and receive it from such as are worthy and honest, and will withal warn thee of thy faults; for flatterers have never any virtue — they are ever base, creeping, cowardly persons. … But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for as a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend.
~ Walter Raleigh ~
2019
There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth.
~ Jean Giraudoux ~
2020
A wise man ought not to desire to inhabit that country where men have more authority than laws.
~ Walter Raleigh ~
2021
Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!
~ Walter Raleigh ~
2022
Look a-here, sweet mama,
Let's burn off both our shoes
Well, my heart's a-beatin' rhythm
And my soul is singin' the blues.
~ Jerry Lee Lewis ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of his recent death.
2023
The ground for taking ignorance to be restrictive of freedom is that it causes people to make choices which they would not have made if they had seen what the realization of their choices involved.
~ Alfred Jules Ayer ~
2024
The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability.
~ Alfred Jules Ayer ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
It’s always worthwhile to make others aware of their worth. ~ Malcolm Forbes
2005
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. ~ John Adams (born 30 October 1735)
2006
The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical. ~ John Adams
2007
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. ~ John Adams
2008
Date not the life which thou hast run by the mean of reckoning of the hours and days, which though hast breathed: a life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line, — by deeds, not years... ~ Richard Brinsley Sheridan (born 30 October 1751)
2009
The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. ~ John Adams
2010
As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people. ~ John Adams
2011
When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead,
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said —
Feed your head! Feed your head!
~ Grace Slick ~ (born 30 October 1939)
2012
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
~ Paul Valéry ~
2013
The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.
~ John Adams ~
2014
There is no such thing as a normal period of history. Normality is a fiction of economic textbooks.
~ Joan Robinson ~
2015
We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact!
~ John Adams ~
2016
A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be one stage in a series of inner transformations.
~ Paul Valéry ~
2017
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.
~ John Adams ~
2018
Virtue is not always amiable. Integrity is sometimes ruined by prejudices and by passions.
~ John Adams ~
2019
Let every declamation turn upon the beauty of liberty and virtue, and the deformity, turpitude, and malignity, of slavery and vice. Let the public disputations become researches into the grounds and nature and ends of government, and the means of preserving the good and demolishing the evil. Let the dialogues, and all the exercises, become the instruments of impressing on the tender mind, and of spreading and distributing far and wide, the ideas of right and the sensations of freedom.
In a word, let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
~ John Adams ~
2020
Metaphysicians and politicians may dispute forever, but they will never find any other moral principle or foundation of rule or obedience, than the consent of governors and governed.
~ John Adams ~
2021
Dreams grow holy put in action; work grows fair through starry dreaming,
But where each flows on unmingling, both are fruitless and in vain.
~ Adelaide Anne Procter ~
2022
The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed!
~ Richard Brinsley Sheridan ~
2023
The best way I can describe it is: after the show was over, at a party or any — any kind social gathering, if one of us bumped into each other, that was it, that was the end of the night. We just sat with the person all night long — and that was it. You apologized to the people that you were with, but they had to understand you had met somebody special to you, and you were going to talk to that person for the rest of the night. And that's the way it worked. It's certainly the way it worked with all of us. It's just the way it is.
~ Matthew Perry ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of his recent death.
2024
The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.
~ John Adams ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…
2004
Merry meet, and merry part, and Blessed Be. ~ A pagan expression of blessing.
2005
I can see lights in the distance trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing a waltz on All Souls Night.
~ Loreena McKennitt ~ (Halloween / All Soul's Night theme)
2006
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
~ John Keats ~ (born October 31, 1795)
2007
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.
~ Aleister Crowley ~
2008
Youth is not a question of years: one is young or old from birth. ~ Natalie Clifford Barney
2009
Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks
Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
A fellowship with essence; till we shine,
Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold
The clear religion of heaven!
~ John Keats ~
2010
Standing on the bridge that crosses
The river that goes out to the sea
The wind is full of a thousand voices
They pass by the bridge and me.
~ Loreena McKennitt ~ (for a Samhain/All Hallow's Eve/Halloween/All Soul's Night theme)
2011
Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF!

~ Charity slogan for UNICEF ~

2012
There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.
~ Charles M. Schulz ~
in
~ It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown ~
2013
The imagination may be compared to Adam's dream — he awoke and found it truth.
~ John Keats ~
2014
On Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch, then flies through the air to bring toys to all the good little children everywhere. Wouldn't you like to sit with me in the pumpkin patch on Halloween night and wait for the Great Pumpkin?
~ Charles M. Schulz ~
in
~ It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown ~
2015
If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.
~ John Keats ~
2016
OH GREAT PUMPKIN, WHERE ARE YOU?!
~ Charles M. Schulz ~
in
~ It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown ~
2017
I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.
~ Willa Cather ~
2018
I am beginning to have a healthy dread of possessions, be it of a country, a house, a being or even an idea. If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from within; we are the possession of our possessions. All wars and most loves come from the possessive instinct. Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men: that you may belong to everything and everything be yours inclusive of yourself.
Could we, and we can, have the vital necessities for all, we should do away with this cry of class and begin to differentiate between individuals.
~ Natalie Clifford Barney ~
2019
I assert that every man is a partialist; that nature secures him as an instrument by self-conceit, preventing the tendencies to religion and science; and now further assert, that, each man's genius being nearly and affectionately explored, he is justified in his individuality, as his nature is found to be immense; and now I add that every man is a universalist also, and, as our earth, whilst it spins on its own axis, spins all the time around the sun through the celestial spaces, so the least of its rational children, the most dedicated to his private affair, works out, though as it were under a disguise, the universal problem. We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field, goes through every point of pumpkin history.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
2020
From ghoulies and ghosties,
And long-leggedy beasties,
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
~ Anonymous Celtic prayer ~
2021
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
~ John Keats ~
2022
Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.
~ Natalie Clifford Barney ~
2023
In spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.
~ John Keats ~
2024
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