Wikiquote:Quote of the day/October 2009

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October 1
  The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good.

~ Rufus Choate ~


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October 2
  There is but one means to extenuate the effects of enemy fire: it is to develop a more violent fire oneself.

~ Ferdinand Foch ~


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October 3
 

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 ~


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October 4
 

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 These need to be exposed and repealed.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 ~


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October 5
 

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 ~


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October 6
 

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 ~


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October 7
  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 ~


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October 8
  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 ~


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October 9
  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 ~


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October 10
  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 ~

File:White Dove With Olive Branch.JPG


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October 11
  The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~


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October 12
  Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

~ Aleister Crowley ~


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October 13
  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 ~


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October 14
 

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 ~


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October 15
File:Justitia mayer.jpg
  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 ~


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October 16
  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 ~

File:Crucified swastika.svg


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October 17
 

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

~ Arthur Miller ~


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October 18
  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 ~


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October 19
 

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 ~


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October 20
 

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 ~


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October 21
 

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 ~


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October 22
  If you want to change the way people respond to you, change the way you respond to people.

~ Timothy Leary ~


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October 23
  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 ~


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October 24
 

A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence.

~ Stephen Covey ~


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October 25





  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 ~






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October 26
 

Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.

~ Napoleon Hill ~


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October 27
 

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
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 ~

 


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October 28
 

The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.

~ Jonas Salk ~


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October 29
  No moral system can rest solely on authority.

~ Alfred Jules Ayer ~


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October 30
 

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 ~


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October 31
 

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 ~


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Today is Thursday, March 28, 2024; it is now 09:01 (UTC)