Wikiquote:Quote of the day/August

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Today is Wednesday, November 19, 2008; it is now 15:28 (UTC)

July << August 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 >> September

This page lists quote of the day proposals specifically for dates in the month of August, and quotes proposed should ideally have some relation to the day, or persons born on it, though sometimes exceptions can be made, usually for notable quotes that relate to recent events, such as the death of prominent individuals. Developing ideas of people or works to quote on specific days can be explored through the Wikipedia page: List of historical anniversaries. The numeric section heading of each date is also a direct link to the Wikipedia list of births, deaths, and other events which occured on that date.

See also: August 2008

Ranking system:

4 : Excellent - should definitely be used.
3 : Very Good - strong desire to see it used.
2 : Good - some desire to see it used.
1 : Acceptable - but with no particular desire to see it used.
0 : Not acceptable - not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
2003
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. ~ Aristotle
2004
Called or uncalled, God is there. ~ Ancient proverb, said to be Spartan, popularized by Carl Jung
  • selected by Kalki
    This is a translation of the Latin phrase Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit. which Jung used as an inscription on his house, and also on his tomb. It is also commonly translated as " Called or uncalled, God is present." or sometimes "Invoked or not invoked...", "Bidden or unbidden", or "Summoned or not summoned..." God is present.
2005
From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it. That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber trophies than all the stars in universal space. ~ Herman Melville (born 1 August 1819)
2006
And now we meet in an abandoned studio
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago
And you remember the jingles used to go
Oh, oh — You were the first one.
Oh, oh — You were the last one.
Video killed the radio star.
~ The Buggles ~
2007
People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. ~ Ingmar Bergman (recent death)
2008
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. ~ Herman Melville in Moby-Dick (born 1 August 1819)
2009

[edit] Suggestions

A man to thrive must keep alive.

  • 0 (no source, no anon, no relevance) ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 04:43, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 0 Zarbon 14:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

They took the credit for your second symphony.
Rewritten by machine and new technology,
and now I understand the problems you can see.
~ The Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star"

  • first song played on MTV, (1 August 1981)
  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 04:49, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 Jeff Q (talk) 09:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 14:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:29, 2 August 2008 (UTC) not as memorable as the chorus of the song, which has already been used.

Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round. ~ Herman Melville (born 1 August 1819)

  • 3 Kalki 23:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 14:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilise civilisation and christianise Christendom? ~ Herman Melville (born 1 August 1819)

  • 3 Kalki 23:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 14:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~ Michael Badnarik

  • 3 Zarbon 03:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 11:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC) I would rank this higher, but I don't believe this actually originates with Badnarik.

Allow me to dispel a myth. People in the Middle East do not hate us for our freedom. They do not hate us for our lifestyle. They hate us because we have spent many years attempting to force them to emulate our lifestyle. ~ Michael Badnarik

  • 2 Zarbon 03:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 11:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The question is: How bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like. I'm quite sure that I will never experience that war - because dissidents are always the first to be eliminated. ~ Michael Badnarik

  • 2 Zarbon 03:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 11:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I am a very peaceful man. I love people and am known for my gregarious personality. However, if you try to confiscate my guns, I will feel compelled to give them to you, one bullet at a time. ~ Michael Badnarik

  • 4 Zarbon 03:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 11:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


2004
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts... ~ William Shakespeare in As You Like It
2005
When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, and they never will because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains need to wake up. I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it. ~ "Serendipity" in Dogma, by Kevin Smith
2006
Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. ~ James Baldwin (born 2 August 1924)
2007
The moment always comes when, having collected one's ideas, certain images, an intuition of a certain kind of development — whether psychological or material — one must pass on to the actual realization. ~ Michelangelo Antonioni (recent death)
2008
Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace. ~ James Baldwin
2009

[edit] Suggestions

There is no toy called easy joy.

  • 0 (no source, no anon, no relevance) ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 04:43, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 0 Zarbon 14:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one’s beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses. ~ James Baldwin (born 2 August 1924)

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. ~ James Baldwin

Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply. ~ James Baldwin

Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable. ~ James Baldwin

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up. ~ James Baldwin (born 2 August 1924)

The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. ~ Ken MacLeod

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Life is a wave, which in no two consecutive moments of its existence is composed of the same particles. ~ John Tyndall

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to our taste. ~ John Tyndall

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Religious feeling is as much a verity as any other part of human consciousness; and against it, on the subjective side, the waves of science beat in vain. ~ John Tyndall

  • 4 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

They are not long, the days of wine and roses;
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream. ~ Ernest Dowson

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex. You thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did. ~ James Baldwin

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him. ~ James Baldwin

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

It's no credit to this enormously rich country that there are more oppressive, less decent governments elsewhere. We claim superiority of our institutions. We ought to live up to our own standards, not use misery elsewhere as an endless source of self-gratification and justification. ~ James Baldwin

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. ~ James Baldwin

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. ~ James Baldwin

  • 2 Zarbon 03:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 11:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


2004
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children. ~ Khalil Gibran
2005
When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist upon other planets throughout the universe. It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose. ~ Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904)
2006
Somewhere, he thought, on the long backtrack of history, the human race had accepted an insanity for a principle and had persisted in it until today that insanity-turned-principle stood ready to wipe out, if not the race itself, at least all of those things, both material and immaterial, that had been fashioned as symbols of humanity through many hard-won centuries. ~ Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904)
2007
There is a plan, it seems to me, that reaches out of the electron to the rim of the universe and what this plan may be or how it came about is beyond my feeble intellect. But if we are looking for something on which to pin our faith — and, indeed, our hope — the plan might well be it. I think we have thought too small and have been too afraid. ~ Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904)
2008
I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space. I have been concerned with where we, as a race, may be going and what may be our purpose in the universal scheme — if we have a purpose. In general, I believe we do, and perhaps an important one. ~ Clifford D. Simak
2009

[edit] Suggestions

I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone. ~ 3 August 1493 1492 diary entry by Christopher Columbus, starting his journey to what will become known as America.

Time is still the great mystery to us. It is no more than a concept; we don't know if it even exists... ~ Clifford D. Simak

  • 3 because the eternity of time stretches forever and the acceptance of the unknown is what makes it even more of a mystery. Zarbon 15:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 12:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

There was a world of mutants, men and women who were more than normal men and women, persons who had certain human talents and certain human understandings which the normal men and women of the world had never known, or having known, could not utilize in their entirety, unable to use intelligently all the mighty powers which lay dormant in their brains. ~ Clifford D. Simak

  • 3 because this has been scientifically proven true, that human beings use only approximately three percent of their brain. And the "smartest" ones use merely four percent. Zarbon 15:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 12:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by faith? Is faith enough for Man? Should he be satisfied with faith alone? Is there no way of finding out the truth? Is the attitude of faith, of believing in something for which there can be no more than philosophic proof...? ~ Clifford D. Simak

  • 3 because the devotion to faith for the sake of faith alone doesn't hold enough evidence for mankind to suffer its restrictions. Philosophic proof is beautiful, magnificent, and utterly brilliant, but it has proven not unsatisfactory for the minds that have captured the Earth today. Zarbon 15:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 12:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC) (but would complete the last sentence as Simak wrote it: "Is the attitude of faith, of believing in something for which there can be no more than philosophic proof the true mark of a Christian?" — in that form I might someday rank it a 3, or even a 4, but not this year.)

I did not want to move. For I had the feeling that this was a place, once seen, that could not be seen again. If I left and then came back, it would not be the same; no matter how many times I might return to this particular spot the place and feeling would never be the same, something would be lost or something would be added, and there never would exist again, through all eternity, all the integrated factors that made it what it was in this magic moment. ~ Clifford D. Simak

  • 3 Kalki 12:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 because no moment can be replaced. Zarbon 04:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

We came into a homeless frontier, a place where we were not welcome, where nothing that lived was welcome, where thought and logic were abhorrent and we were frightened, but we went into this place because the universe lay before us, and if we were to know ourselves, we must know the universe... ~ Clifford D. Simak

  • 3 Kalki 12:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 because all is intertwined. Zarbon 04:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps there was no limit, there might, quite likely, be no such condition as the ultimate; there might be no time when any creature or any group of creatures could stop at any certain point and say, this is as far as we can go, there is no use of trying to go farther. For each new development produced, as side effects, so many other possibilities, so many other roads to travel, that with each step one took down any given road there were more paths to follow. There'd never be an end, he thought — no end to anything. ~ Clifford D. Simak

  • 3 Kalki 12:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 04:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


2003
I can't die. It would ruin my image. ~ Jack La Lanne
2004
We are defined by how we use our power. ~ Gerry Spence
2005
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~ (born 4 August 1792)
2006
If you divide suffering and dross, you may
Diminish till it is consumed away;
If you divide pleasure and love and thought,
Each part exceeds the whole; and we know not
How much, while any yet remains unshared...
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~
2007
In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man’s estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~
2008
Throughout American history, there have been moments that call on us to meet the challenges of an uncertain world, and pay whatever price is required to secure our freedom. ~ Barack Obama
2009

[edit] Suggestions

Entitle us to the Liberty of proving the Truth of the Papers, which in the Information are called false, malicious, seditious and scandalous. ~ John Peter Zenger, acquitted 4 August 1735 of slander on the grounds that what he published was true.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~ (born 4 August 1792)

  • 3 Kalki 12:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC) 4 Kalki 16:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC) some of my favorite lines by Shelley, but making a tactical retreat from ranking them at 4.
  • 2 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:57, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 15:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC) (I don't dislike these lines; but unless a reader knows the title of the poem [The Cloud], I'm not sure that they will be understood by themselves.)
    • Currently it seems that the excellent lines from Epipsychidion will be the selection for this year, which I am content with; but these words and this poem have deliberate metaphoric value and evocative beauty as well as such literal value as becomes clear from knowing the title of the poem. ~ Kalki 16:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 15:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number —
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you —
Ye are many — they are few.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

  • 3 InvisibleSun 15:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC) I might eventually rank this a 3 or 4, but again attempting to gain favor for one of my favorites above — though this year I believe an impressive Barack Obama quote should be used for his birthday, as well as a impressive John McCain quote on the 29th for his.

The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats though unseen among us, — visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower...
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~

All love is sweet,
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~

I know the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. And that's what I ask. But they get mad at the straight line. ~ Helen Thomas

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC) might rank this a 3 eventually

...we seem to be more tolerant now of what I think we should not tolerate. ~ Helen Thomas

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC) might rank this a 3 eventually

You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun. ~ Helen Thomas

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC) might rank this a 3 or 4 eventually

When one of you young queens has finished, can you bring this old queen a drink? ~ Queen Elizabeth

  • 2 for comedic value. Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I am almost glad we have been bombed. Now I feel I can look the East End in the face. ~ Queen Elizabeth

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

It is the addition of strangeness to beauty that constitutes the romantic character in art. ~ Walter Pater

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC) might rank this a 3 eventually

Every intellectual product must be judged from the point of view of the age and the people in which it was produced. ~ Walter Pater

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC) might rank this a 3 eventually

Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy. To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. ~ Walter Pater

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC) might rank this a 4 eventually

What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions. ~ Walter Pater

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC) might rank this a 3 eventually

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war...That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. ~ Barack Obama

  • 4 because I completely agree with Obama here. I shortened the original verse in order to correspond with the initial message, the main message of the quote. Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.' ~ Barack Obama

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Evolution is more grounded in my experience than angels. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

...it bothers me when I hear people say that government is the enemy. They don't understand its fundamental role. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. ~ Barack Obama

  • 2 Zarbon 04:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 13:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes, and I suppose that mau explain my particular malady as well as anything else. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 05:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I am a prisoner of my own biography: I can't help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 05:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath. When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 05:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we will need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 05:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

War might be hell and still the right thing to do. Economies could collapse despite the best-laid plans. People could work hard all their lives and still lose everything. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 and leaning toward a 4 for this one. Zarbon 05:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Values are faithfully applied to the facts before us, while ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 20:35, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

All the money in the world won't boost student achievement if parents make no effort to instill in their children the values of hard work and delayed gratification. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 20:35, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Identities are scrambling, and then cohering in new ways. Beliefs keep slipping through the noose of predictability. Facile expectations and simple explanations are being constantly upended. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 20:35, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I was sorry to leave. Not simply because I had made so many new friends, but because in the faces of all the men and women I'd met I had recognized pieces of myself. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 20:35, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The blood of slaves reminds us that our pragmatism can sometimes be moral cowardice. Lincoln, and those buried at Gettysburg, remind us that we should pursue our own absolute truths only if we acknowledge that there may be a terrible price to pay. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 04:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

But deliberation alone could not provide the slave his freedom or cleanse America of its original sin. In the end, it was the sword that would sever his chains. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 04:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

For in the end laws are just words on a page- words that are sometimes malleable, opaque, as dependent on context and trust as they are in a story or poem or promise to someone, words whose meanings are subject to erosion, sometimes collapsing in the blink of an eye. ~ Barack Obama

  • 3 Zarbon 04:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


2003
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. ~ Edsger Dijkstra
2004
Your strength is but an accident arising from the weakness of others. ~ Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
2005
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. ~ Mohandas Gandhi
2006
Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread... ~ Conrad Aiken (born 5 August 1889)
2007
There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. ~ Guy de Maupassant (born 5 August 1850)
2008
Those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force — they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (recent death)
2009

[edit] Suggestions

Blond hair and breasts, that's how I got started. I couldn't act. All I had was blond hair and a body men liked. The reason I got ahead is that I was lucky and met the right men. ~ Marilyn Monroe, found dead in her apartment that day

Separate we come, and separate we go, and this be it known, is all that we know. ~ Conrad Aiken (born 5 August 1889)

  • 3 Kalki 21:22, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

If I could reach from pole to pole
or grasp the ocean with a span,
I would be measured by the soul
The mind's the standard of the Man. ~ Isaac Watts (poem used by Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man", who was born this day)

  • 3 Kalki 21:22, 4 August 2005 (UTC) This has now already been used on 17 July 2006. ~ Kalki 15:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

'Tis true, my form is something odd
but blaming me, is blaming God,
Could I create myself anew
I would not fail in pleasing you.
~ Joseph Merrick ~ (born 5 August 1862)

  • 3 Kalki 15:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 15:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


2003
When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly. ~ Donald Douglas
2004
Character does count. For too long we have gotten by in a society that says the only thing right is to get by and the only thing wrong is to get caught. Character is doing what's right when nobody is looking... ~ J. C. Watts
2005
The Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
2006
One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underpriviliged. ~ Richard Hofstadter
2007
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

~ Alfred Tennyson ~

2008
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
~ Alfred Tennyson, "In Memoriam A.H.H." (born this day)
2009

[edit] Suggestions

I don't say we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops!...uh, depending on the breaks. ~ General "Buck" Turgidson, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Hiroshima was bombed on 6 August 1945)

The players often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand". - Ben Jonson died this day

The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system. The project started with the philosophy that much academic information should be freely available to anyone. It aims to allow information sharing within internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support groups. ~ Tim Berners-Lee, Usenet article <6487@cernvax.cern.ch> (the first public announcement of CERN's "WorldWideWeb" system, made this day in 1991)

  • 4 121a0012 03:11, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 121a0012 04:11, August 5, 2005 (UTC) (adjusted my vote as next year is the 15th anniversary which would be a better choice)
  • 2 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:37, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC) but might someday rank it a 3.
  • 1 Zarbon 15:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 18:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
~ Alfred Tennyson, "Charge of the Light Brigade"

It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result — ruthlessness in political life. ~ Richard Hofstadter (born 6 August 1916)

The idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant. ~ Richard Hofstadter

The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely. ~ Charles Fort

The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another fly wide open. ~ Charles Fort

I have taken the stand that nobody can be always wrong, but it does seem to me that I have approximated so highly that I am nothing short of a negative genius. ~ Charles Fort


2003
It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. ~ Andrew Jackson
2004
A man should be upright, not kept upright. ~ Marcus Aurelius
2005
Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places. ~ Garrison Keillor (born 7 August 1942)
2006
We help the internet not suck. ~ Jimmy Wales (born 7 August 1966)
2007
Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal. ~ Jimmy Wales
2008
The question isn't whether you have a good master or a bad master. It's to be your own master. That is the dignity of humanity. ~ Alan Keyes
2009

[edit] Suggestions

When someone just writes 'fuck, fuck, fuck', we just fix it, laugh and move on. But the difficult social issues are the borderline cases - people who do some good work, but who are also a pain in the neck. ~ Jimmy Wales (born that day) "Who knows?", The Guardian, October 26, 2004

Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car. ~ Garrison Keillor (born this day)

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. ~ Jimmy Wales

  • 0 3 Kalki 22:34, 5 August 2005 This quote has now already been used, on 15 January 2006
  • 0 Zarbon 15:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

It turns out a lot of people don’t get it. Wikipedia is like rock’n’roll; it’s a cultural shift. ~ Jimmy Wales

When a feeling dissolves, it ceases to be your enemy and begins to be one of your allies. ~ Ed Seykota

  • 2 Zarbon 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Freedom does not mean doing what you can get away with, doing what you please. It means, instead, having the opportunity to do what you ought to do--for family and for community and for humanity as a whole. ~ Alan Keyes

  • 2 Zarbon 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right. ~ Alan Keyes

  • 2 Zarbon 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The travesty of slavery wasn't physical abuse. It was the moral abuse of looking at a human being as if they are an animal. ~ Alan Keyes

  • 2 Zarbon 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There's not a single thing on offer in this all-too-temporary world for which you should ever sell your soul. ~ Alan Keyes

  • 3 for the soul should never be sold. Zarbon 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Our success or failure is not in the hands of our leaders. It is in our hands. ~ Alan Keyes

  • 2 Zarbon 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Every leader, and every regime, and every movement, and every organization that steps across the line to terrorism must be banished from the discourse of civilized human life. ~ Alan Keyes

  • 2 Zarbon 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The answer to crime is not gun control, it is law enforcement and self-control. ~ Alan Keyes

  • 3 Zarbon 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


2003
A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." ~ Stephen Crane
2004
It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion. ~ Tertullian
2005
It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. ~ Paul Dirac (born 8 August 8 1902)
2006
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees! ~ Emiliano Zapata (born 8 August 1879)
2007
There is a quiet at the heart of love,
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.
~ Sara Teasdale ~ (born 8 August 1884)
2008
If I am peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity.
~ Sara Teasdale ~
2009

[edit] Suggestions

To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. ~ Richard Nixon, Resignation Speech, August 8, 1974

The ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good; and when one's acting in a certain manner has this tendency he has a right thus to act. ~ Francis Hutcheson (date of birth)

That Action is best which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions misery. ~ Francis Hutcheson (date of birth)

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it's the exact opposite! ~ Paul Dirac, born 8 August 1902

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. ~ The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, died 8 August 1965

  • 3 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 - Would prefer that this quote be moved to December 14, Jackson's date of birth. - InvisibleSun 10:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC) (but would prefer it on the date of birth)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Make songs for Death as you would sing to Love —
But you will not assuage him. He alone
Of all the gods will take no gifts from men.
~ Sara Teasdale

  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,—
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.
~ Sara Teasdale

  • 4 InvisibleSun 10:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,
If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,
Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness.
~ Sara Teasdale

  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

O lovely chance, what can I do
To give my gratefulness to you?
You rise between myself and me
With a wise persistency;
I would have broken body and soul,
But by your grace, still I am whole.
~ Sara Teasdale

  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.
~ Sara Teasdale ~

  • 3 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Two thousand years — much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men —
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.
~ Sara Teasdale ~

  • 3 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Military occupation causes terrorism. ~ Chris Eubank

  • 2 Zarbon 05:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Democracy cannot be exported with a gun. ~ Chris Eubank

  • 2 Zarbon 05:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Sleep peacefully people, there will not be a war. ~ Alija Izetbegović

  • 2 Zarbon 05:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Fossil 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

But the voice of anatomy, like the voice of all nature, never reaches the mental ear of the Great Commoner. It is the novel province of anatomy to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the structure, the origin and the history of man. ~ Henry Fairfield Osborn

  • 4 Fossil 21:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

This chain of human ancestors was totally unknown to Darwin. He could not have even dreamed of such a flood of proof and truth. ~ Henry Fairfield Osborn

  • 3 Fossil 21:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Care for the race, even if the individual must suffer -- this must be the keynote of our future. ~ Henry Fairfield Osborn

  • 3 Fossil 21:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

We have to be reminded over and over again that Nature is full of paradoxes. ~ Henry Fairfield Osborn

  • 3 Fossil 21:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


2003
The battle of the sexes will never be won as long as we keep sleeping with the enemy. ~ Emo Phillips
2004
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies. ~ Robinson Jeffers
2005
TCP implementations will follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. ~ Jonathan B. Postel, RFC 793, entire text of section 2.10
2006
Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society... But for me, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists. ~ Jean Piaget
2007
You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one. ~ P. L. Travers (born 9 August 1899)
2008
The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered. ~ Jean Piaget
2009

[edit] Suggestions

I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, so I ask you to confirm me with your prayers. ~ Gerald Ford, became president on 9 August after Nixon's resignation.

  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 11:31, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 don't want to use this if we use Nixon on 8th AllanHainey 12:00, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC); ditto on "not after Nixon"
  • 1 InvisibleSun 23:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. - Thomas Edison got telegraph patent today

If you are not ready, and did not know what to do, it could hurt you in different ways. It could knock you down, hard, or throw you against a tree or a wall. It is such a big explosion, it can smash in buildings and knock signboards over, and break windows all over town, but if you duck and cover, like Bert [the Turtle], you will be much safer. ~ Duck and Cover (1951), about protecting yourself from an atomic explosion; the last-ever nuclear attack (so far) occurred on this date

Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality... Knowledge, then, is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate. ~ Jean Piaget

For me there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer, because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question. ~ P. L. Travers

  • 3 Kalki 21:35, 8 August 2007 (UTC) am somewhat leaning towards a 4 on this
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle. ~ Marvin Minsky

No man can lose what he never had. ~ Izaak Walton

Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy. ~ Izaak Walton

Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue. ~ Izaak Walton

We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door. ~ Marvin Minsky


2004
Nobody can be said to have attained the pinnacle of Truth until a thousand sincere people have denounced him for blasphemy. ~ Anthony de Mello
2005
There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, "Ah, it's those damn liberals," and a whole group of liberals saying, "It's all those damn conservatives." ~ Peter Jennings (recent death)
2006
Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. ~ Herbert Hoover (date of birth)
2007
It has occasionally been remarked upon that it is as easy to overlook something large and obvious as it is to overlook something small and niggling, and that the large things one overlooks can often cause problems. ~ Neil Gaiman in Stardust (movie adaptation released 10 August 2007)
2008
We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday — the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn. ~ Laurence Binyon (born 10 August 1869)
2009

[edit] Suggestions

To program is to understand. ~ Kristen Nygaard, computer scientist, died that day.

Being a politician is a poor profession. Being a public servant is a noble one. ~ Herbert Hoover (date of birth)

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism. ~ Herbert Hoover (date of birth)

Oh father high in heaven -- smile down upon your son
Who's busy with his money games -- his women and his gun. ~ Ian Anderson

  • 3 Zarbon 05:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 19:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 23:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC) Many of the Jethro Tull lyrics are interesting, and I might eventually suggest a few myself, but I don't count these as among the best.

Monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder — just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing. Insisting on the humanity of terrorists is, in fact, critical to maintaining their profound responsibility for the evil they commit. ~ Andrew Sullivan (born August 10, 1963)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 00:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

First silence. Then denial. Then support of the insupportable. Then vilification of the dissenters. The pattern is as old as time. ~ Andrew Sullivan

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 23:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC) The context of the quote isn't sufficiently clear as it stands.
  • 2 Zarbon 00:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

A constitutional republic dedicated before everything to the protection of liberty cannot legalize torture and remain a constitutional republic. It imports into itself a tumor of pure tyranny. ~ Andrew Sullivan

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 00:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The one thing we know about torture is that it was never designed in the first place to get at the actual truth of anything; it was designed in the darkest days of human history to produce false confessions in order to annihilate political and religious dissidents. And that is how it always works: it gets confessions regardless of their accuracy. ~ Andrew Sullivan

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 00:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


2003
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. ~ Adlai Stevenson
2004
The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others. ~ Dag Hammarskjöld
2005
I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll (born 11 August 1833)
2006
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2007
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2008
There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
2009

[edit] Suggestions

The only real game — I think — in the world is baseball. ~ Babe Ruth, in honour of his 500th homerun, scored that day

  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 05:58, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 significant for USA but not really for anyone else AllanHainey 12:00, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
    • For the record, the first voter is not from the US (unless you count Israel as the 51st state). ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 16:04, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 121a0012 00:29, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 20:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 TomPhil 11:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC); for 2007 only, given Barry Bonds likely imminent new record
  • 0 Zarbon 15:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community. - Andrew Carnegie, died this day

  • 3 AllanHainey 12:00, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 20:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 - Should be transferred to November 25, Carnegie's birthdate. - InvisibleSun 21:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I stand. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll (date of birth)

If the world ever advances beyond what it is today, it must be led by men who express their real opinions. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll (date of birth)

You cannot choose your battlefield,
God does that for you;
But you can plant a standard
Where a standard never flew.
~ Nathalia Crane ~

An enemy forgiven is more dangerous than a thousand foes. ~ Rodolfo Graziani

  • 4 and I love this quote because of the magnificently climactic idea behind it...an enemy left alive can evolve into a dangerous man of vengeance. I love the imagery depicted by this quote, pertaining to say that the only incapable foe is the dead foe. Hence, forgiving a foe may create a deadlier one in turn. Zarbon 04:49, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi. If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace a larger view of the Force. ~ from Star Wars as Darth Sidious Ian McDiarmid (born August 11)

  • 3 because this is what I strongly believe. This is most likely the most meaningful, most moral quotation in the history of Star Wars. Do not be dogmatic, dogma is the death of learning. This quote should seriously be taken into consideration. Zarbon 14:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Wipe them out, all of them. ~ from Star Wars as Darth Sidious Ian McDiarmid (born August 11)

  • 3 Zarbon 05:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I can feel your anger. It gives you focus. It makes you stronger. ~ from Star Wars as Darth Sidious Ian McDiarmid (born August 11)

  • 3 Zarbon 05:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Remember back to your early teachings. All who gain power are afraid to lose it. Even the Jedi. ~ from Star Wars as Darth Sidious Ian McDiarmid (born August 11)

  • 3 Zarbon 05:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Good is a point of view, Anakin. The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power. ~ from Star Wars as Darth Sidious Ian McDiarmid (born August 11)

  • 3 because this quote pretty much defines what I believe, especially "Good is a point of view" this quote is brilliance defined. Zarbon 05:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

We must reverse this psychology (of needing guns for home defense). We can do it by passing a law that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legitimate officer of the law goes to jail- period! ~ Carl Rowan

  • 2 Zarbon 14:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Outside his own ever-narrowing field of specialization, a scientist is a layman. What members of an academy of science have in common is a certain form of semiparasitic living. ~ Erwin Chargaff

  • 2 Zarbon 14:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 00:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


2003
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. ~ Adlai Stevenson
2004
There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. ~ Washington Irving
2005
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes. ~ George Soros (born 12 August 1930)
2006
The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist. ~ Erwin Schrödinger
2007
Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong. ~ George Soros
2008
It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought — that is to be educated. ~ Edith Hamilton
2009

[edit] Suggestions

H(t) \left| \psi (t) \right\rangle = i \hbar {\partial\over\partial t} \left| \psi (t) \right\rangle ~ Erwin Schrödinger, born that day.

  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 06:08, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 121a0012 02:51, July 21, 2005 (UTC) (much too obscure)
  • 1 likewise too obscure
    • Unsigned vote! Also: too obscure? Schrödinger's equation is how the world works :) ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 16:06, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Sorry unsigned was mine, it might well be how the world works but, like all equations, without a definition of notation & terms it is essentially a meaningless arrangement of letters & symbols AllanHainey 07:27, 27 July 2005 (UTC)