Wikiquote:Quote of the day/September 2007
- September 1
I have always felt that humor was a wonderful vehicle to let us become connected with each other and ourselves… I try to portray the similarities and polarities in men and women, so that we can acknowledge and embrace our collective consciousness. ~ Lily Tomlin
- September 2
There is only one thing infamous in love, and that is a falsehood. ~ Paul Bourget
- September 3
A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something to give in return. ~ Sarah Orne Jewett
- September 4
Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant. ~ François-René de Chateaubriand
- September 5
The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art. ... All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it. ~ Caspar David Friedrich
- September 6
Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake. ~ Frances Wright
- September 7
Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese? ~ Edith Sitwell
- September 8
I'm not a politician, I'm a musician. I care about giving people a place where they can go to enjoy themselves and to begin to live again. To the man you have to give the spirit, and when you give him the spirit, you have done everything. ~ Luciano Pavarotti
- September 9
You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you. ~ Madeleine L'Engle
- September 10
The river of truth is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between them, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the mainstream. ~ Cyril Connolly
- September 11
Our best destiny, as planetary cohabitants, is the development of what has been called "species consciousness" — something over and above nationalisms, blocs, religions, ethnicities ... I have been trying to apply such a consciousness, and such a sensibility. Thinking of the victims, the perpetrators, and the near future, I felt species grief, then species shame, then species fear. ~ Martin Amis on the terrorist attacks of 11th September 2001
- September 12
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right... The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds. ~ H. L. Mencken
- September 13
Worldly renown is naught but a breath of wind, which now comes this way and now comes that, and changes name because it changes quarter. ~ Dante Alighieri
- September 14
The vast majority of the peoples of the world are against war and against aggression. If they make their wishes known and effective, war can be stopped. It all depends on whether they are willing to make the effort necessary for the purpose. For, that it will require an effort, no one who considers the history of the world on these subjects can doubt. ~ Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood
- September 15
Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side. ~ François de La Rochefoucauld
- September 16
Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense. ~ Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
- September 17
You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case. ~ Ken Kesey
- September 18
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and the last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings. ~ Samuel Johnson
- September 19
I think everybody who has a brain should get involved in politics. Working within. Not criticizing it from the outside. Become an active participant, no matter how feeble you think the effort is. ~ Cass Elliot
- September 20
In each of us are places where we have never gone. Only by pressing the limits do you ever find them. ~ Joyce Brothers
- September 21
Life begins perpetually. Gathered together at last under the leadership of man, the student-teacher of the universe... unified, disciplined, armed with the scret powers of the atom, and with knowledge as yet beyond dreaming, Life, forever dying to be born afresh, forever young and eager, will presently stand upon this earth as upon a footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars. ~ H. G. Wells
- September 22
Just practice good, do good for others, without thinking of making yourself known so that you may gain reward. Really bring benefit to others, gaining nothing for yourself. This is the primary requisite for breaking free of attachments to the Self. ~ Dōgen
- September 23
Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far. ~ Euripides
- September 24
My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and politeness. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
- September 25
We live in a time when the words impossible and unsolvable are no longer part of the scientific community's vocabulary. Each day we move closer to trials that will not just minimize the symptoms of disease and injury but eliminate them. ~ Christopher Reeve
- September 26
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
~ T. S. Eliot in The Four Quartets ~
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
~ T. S. Eliot in The Four Quartets ~
- September 27
You can decide what you want to eat for dinner, you can decide to go away for the weekend, and you can decide what clothes you’re going to wear in the morning, but when it comes to artistic things, there’s never a rhyme or reason. It’s, like, they just happen. And they happen when they happen. ~ Meat Loaf
- September 28
A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed — I well know. For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself. ~ Georges Clemenceau
- September 29
Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning. ~ Miguel de Cervantes
- September 30
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. ~ Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi