Wikiquote:Quote of the day/September 2015

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Today is Sunday, November 3, 2024; it is now 03:25 (UTC)


September 1
 

Remember we're all in this alone.

~ Jane Wagner for Lily Tomlin ~


 

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September 2

 

More is given to us than to any people at any time before; and, therefore, more is required of us. We have made, and still are making, enormous advances on material lines. It is necessary that we commensurately advance on moral lines. Civilization, as it progresses, requires a higher conscience, a keener sense of justice, a warmer brotherhood, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit. Falling these, civilization must pass into destruction. It cannot be maintained on the ethics of savagery.

~ Henry George ~

 

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September 3

 

It cannot for a moment be doubted that an art work to be alive, to awaken us to its life, to inspire us sooner or later with its purpose, must indeed be animate with a soul, must have been breathed upon by the spirit and must breathe in turn that spirit. It must stand for the actual, vital first-hand experiences of the one who made it, and must represent his deep-down impression not only of physical nature but more especially and necessarily his understanding of the out-working of that Great Spirit which makes nature so intelligible to us that it ceases to be a phantasm and becomes a sweet, a superb, a convincing Reality.

~ Louis Sullivan ~

 

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September 4
 

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know — all mysticsCatholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion — are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.

~ Anthony de Mello ~


 

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September 5
 

Before we can build a stable civilization worthy of humanity as a whole, it is necessary that each historical civilization should become conscious of its limitations and it's unworthiness to become the ideal civilization of the world.

~ Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan ~

 

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September 6
 

When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties.

~ Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette ~

 

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September 7

 

Still falls the Rain
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

~ Edith Sitwell ~

 

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September 8

 

You're sure
There's a cure.
And you have finally found it.
You think
One drink
Will shrink you 'til you're underground
And living down.
But it's not going to stop.
It's not going to stop.
It's not going to stop
'Til you wise up.

~ Aimee Mann‎‎ ~
in
~ Magnolia ~

 

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September 9
 

There are many evils in this country. The only remedy for every one of them is freedom for the nation.

~ Kalki Krishnamurthy ~

 

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September 10
 

What I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled — to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.

~ Mary Oliver ~

File:Chromology The Boat.jpg

 

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September 11

 

The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women’s rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. These are tyrants, not Muslims. … The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his worldview, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them.
How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life.

~ Salman Rushdie ~

 


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September 12
 
Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly perfectly conceivable that He may have finished it and then turned it over to lesser gods to operate. In the same way many human institutions are turned over to grossly inferior men. This is true, for example, of most universities, and of all great newspapers.
~ H. L. Mencken ~
 

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September 13
 
ZEUS, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names.
~ Ambrose Bierce ~
 

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September 14
 
The principal difference between love and hate is that love is an irradiation, and hate is a concentration. Love makes everything lovely; hate concentrates itself on the object of its hatred. All the fearful counterfeits of love — possessiveness, lust, vanity, jealousy — are closer to hate: they concentrate on the object, guard it, suck it dry.
~ Sydney J. Harris ~
 

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September 15
 
All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.
~ James Fenimore Cooper ~
 

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September 16
 
Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.
~ Francis Parkman ~
 

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September 17
 
Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus. If you're on the bus, and you get left behind, then you'll find it again. If you're off the bus in the first place — then it won't make a damn.
~ Ken Kesey ~
 

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September 18
 
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.
~ Samuel Johnson ~
 

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September 19
 
In 1963 the BBC premiered a show about an alien Who traveled through space and time to combat the powers of evil. … The show has been running in Britain almost fifty years, With many different actors in the role of The Doctor. … One thing is consistent though And this is why the show is so beloved by geeks and nerds — It's all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism! … And if there is any hope for any of us in this giant explosion in which we inhabit then surely that’s it: Intellect and romance triumph over brute force and cynicism!
~ Craig Ferguson ~
 

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September 20
 
An individual's self-concept is the core of his personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior: the ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change. A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life.
~ Joyce Brothers ~
 

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September 21
 
The only deadly sin I know is cynicism.
~ Henry L. Stimson ~
 

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September 22
 
I urge you to work together in promoting a true, worldwide ethical mobilization which, beyond all differences of religious or political convictions, will spread and put into practice a shared ideal of fraternity and solidarity, especially with regard to the poorest and those most excluded.
~ Pope Francis ~
 

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September 23
 
I believe that we are soft creatures in a world with some very hard edges. It's remarkable that we survive at all, much less do high deeds or write great music. I think … tension … is a condition of our existence, and I do my best to depict it.
~ Brian McNaughton ~
 

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September 24
 
Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view.
~ John Brunner ~
 

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September 25
 
The past is never dead. It's not even past.
~ William Faulkner ~
 

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September 26
 
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
~ T. S. Eliot ~
 

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September 27
 
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
~ Samuel Adams ~
 

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September 28
 
I am not bothered by the fact that I am unknown. I am bothered when I do not know others.
~ Confucius (孔子 · Kongzi) ~
 

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September 29
 
I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince.
~ Book of Daniel ~
 

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September 30
 
Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,
Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.
~ Rumi ~
 

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Today is Sunday, November 3, 2024; it is now 03:25 (UTC)