Quote of the day/February
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We are still developing procedures for selecting quotes of the day. This page is for quote of the day proposals specifically for dates in the month of February, and quotes proposed should ideally have some relation to the day, or persons born on it, though sometimes exceptions can be made for quotes that relate to notable current events. 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.
Ranking system:
- 4 : Excellent - should definitely be used. (Perhaps, at most, only one quote per day should be ranked thus by any user, as to avoid confusions)
- 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.
1
2005: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. ~ American proverb
2006 : I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
~ Langston Hughes ~ (date of birth)
2
2005: Anything different is good. ~ Bill Murray as "Phil" in Groundhog Day
2006 : There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history, or nothing happens. ~ Coretta Scott King (recent death)
3
2005 : The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is or has been is but the twilight of the dawn. ~ H. G. Wells
2006 : An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. ~ James A. Michener (Date of birth)
- 3 ~ UDScott 22:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just... I am reasonable because I know the difference between understanding and not understanding and I am just because I have no opinion about things I don’t understand. ~ Gertrude Stein (Date of birth)
- 3 ~ UDScott 22:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father Son and Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died. ~ Don McLean, American Pie, to commemorate The Day the Music Died, on this date in 1959
- 3 ~ UDScott 22:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
4
2005 : Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation, in turn, becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on to the future. ~ Charles Lindbergh (date of birth)
2006 : If one took no chances, one would not fly at all. Safety lies in the judgment of the chances one takes. That judgment, in turn, must rest upon one’s outlook on life. Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. ~ Charles Lindbergh (date of birth)
5
2005 : I profoundly believe that there is on this horizon, as yet only dimly perceived, a new dawn of conscience. In that purer light, people will come to see themselves in each other, which is to say they will make themselves known to one another by their similarities rather than by their differences. Man's knowledge of things will begin to be matched by man's knowledge of self. The significance of a smaller world will be measured not in terms of military advantage, but in terms of advantage for the human community. It will be the triumph of the heartbeat over the drumbeat. ~ Adlai Stevenson (date of birth)
2006 : What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us — what convictions, what courage, what faith — win or lose. ~ Adlai Stevenson (date of birth)
6
2005 (& 2006) : You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down — up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. ~ Ronald Reagan (date of birth)
- This is one of only two quotes that have been accidentally repeated as Wikiquote quotes of the day, and the only one repeated both times on a specific date, due to a failure to record-check; the other is Willa Cather's "Where there is great love there are always miracles" which appeared in both March and April, 2004 due to a record-keeping error.
7
2005 : It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ~ Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities (date of birth)
2006 : He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true. ~ Thomas More (date of birth)
8
2005 : All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. ~ Martin Buber (date of birth)
2006 : There are, indeed, two forms of discontent: one laborious, the other indolent and complaining. We respect the man of laborious desire, but let us not suppose that his restlessness is peace, or his ambition meekness. It is because of the special connection of meekness with contentment that it is promised that the meek shall 'inherit the earth.' Neither covetous men, nor the grave, can inherit anything; they can but consume. Only contentment can possess. ~ John Ruskin (date of birth)
9
2005 : My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue,
An everlasting vision of the everchanging view,
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold,
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.
~ Carole King ~ (date of birth)
2006 : Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses? ~ Mrs Patrick Campbell (date of birth)
10
2005 : Be nice to people on your way up, because you're going to meet them all on your way down. ~ Jimmy Durante (date of birth)
2006 : What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth. ~ Boris Pasternak (date of birth)
11
2005 : If one knows only what one is told, one does not know enough to be able to arrive at a well-balanced decision. ~ Leó Szilárd (date of birth)
2006 : When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clear. ~ René Descartes (Death date)
- proposed by Inhuman14
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. ~ Thomas_Edison (Birth date)
12
2005 : The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less. ~ Arthur Miller
2006 : Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. ~ Abraham Lincoln (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 23:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. ~ Abraham_Lincoln (Birth date)
- proposed by Liquidice5
- 2 Kalki 23:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC) I would wish to extend it with "Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose" if it were to be used in the future.
13
2005 : In this moment, I need to be needed,
With this darkness all around me, I like to be liked,
In this emptiness and fear, I want to be wanted,
'Cause I love to be loved,
I love to be loved.
~ Peter Gabriel ~ (date of birth)
2006 : Life is what it is, and you take what's handed, and you work as hard as you can, and hopefully you'll be successful, but I just don't spend too much time worrying about that. ~ Jerry Springer (Birth date)
- proposed by Liquidice5
14
2005 : Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. ~ Robert A. Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land (Quote on Love for Valentine's Day, from a story about "Valentine Michael Smith")
2006 : Some things you don't need until they leave you; they're the things that you miss. ~ Rob Thomas (date of birth)
- proposed by user Sir John Alexander Macdonald
15
2005 : All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. ~ Galileo Galilei (date of birth)
2006 : I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. ~ Galileo Galilei (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 22:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
"If you love something let it go free. If it doesn't come back, you never had it. If it comes back, love it forever". ~ Doug Horton
- proposed by user Sir John Alexander Macdonald
- 1 Kalki 22:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC) The bulk of the quote derives from a well known proverb of the sixties that I doubt originated with Horton.
16
2005 : A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~ Henry Adams (Birth date)
2006 : Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds. ~ Henry Adams (date of birth)
17
2005 : There is one simple Divinity found in all things, everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being. ~ Giordano Bruno (date of death)
2006 : Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen. ~ Michael Jordan (Birth Date)
- proposed by user Sir John Alexander Macdonald
18
2005 : Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis (date of birth)
2006 : At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can." ~ Toni Morrison (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 23:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. ~ Mark Twain (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published for the first time)
- proposed by user Sir John Alexander Macdonald
- 2 Kalki 23:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC) I would rank this higher with a stronger date tie-in, but I don't believe it's actually from Huckleberry Finn
- 0 Jeff Q (talk) 04:51, 29 April 2006 (UTC), unless we can find the correct source. Neither Wikisource nor Project Gutenberg, both of which include Huckleberry Finn, appear to have any Twain work with both the words "belittle" and "ambitions", so we can't even confirm Twain said it, let alone the appropriateness of this date.
"You forgot the first rule of the fanatic: when you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy." ~ Jeffrey Sinclair, Babylon 5 episode "Infection" (first aired 18 February 1994)
19
2005 : I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgement of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus (date of birth)
2006 : External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It's important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that's unique for yourself. ~ Amy Tan (date of birth)
"You're a religious man. You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Still another will say, 'I built houses,' but I will say, 'I didn't forget you.' ~ Simon Wiesenthal (He was an honorary knighthood)
- proposed by user Sir John Alexander Macdonald
- 2 Kalki 23:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC) but not a very strong date tie-in, and I think there are many better quotes by Wiesenthal
20
2005 : All in all is all we are. ~ Kurt Cobain (date of birth)
2006 : We picked up everything we could get our hands on. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug-collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. ~ Hunter S. Thompson
- proposed by user Sir John Alexander Macdonald as "Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. ~ Hunter S. Thompson (Death Date)
21
2005 : For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
~ W. H. Auden ~ (date of birth)
2006 : When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with. ~ Anaïs Nin (date of birth)
- 4 Kalki 23:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC) date of birth, and also a good bridge between the George Washington quote slated to follow, and the Hunter S Thompson quote that preceded it.
I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment. ~ Malcolm X (Death Date)
- Liquidice5 14:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
- 2 Kalki 23:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC) (but might rank it higher on his birth-date)
I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being, neither white, black, brown nor red. When you are dealing with humanity as one family, there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human being, or one human being living around and with another human being. ~ Malcolm X (Death Date)
- Liquidice5 14:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
- 3 Kalki 23:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC) (but even when there are very good quotes available, I generally prefer to use quotes on people's date of birth rather than their date of death).
22
2005 : All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity. ~ George Washington (date of birth)
2006 : I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. ~ George Washington (Birth Date)
- proposed by user Sir John Alexander Macdonald
- 4 Kalki 23:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
23
2005 : If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up. ~ Hunter S. Thompson (recent death)
2006 : Man is always something more than what he knows of himself. He is not what he is simply once and for all, but is a process... ~ Karl Jaspers (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 23:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with society, other individuals and with oneself. Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them. ~ Karl Jaspers (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 23:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
24
2005 : We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on. ~ Steve Jobs (date of birth)
2006 : Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves. ~ Chester Nimitz (date of birth)
When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth. ~ Steve Jobs (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 15:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
25
2005 : Little darling,
I feel that ice is slowly melting.
Little darling,
It seems like years since it's been clear.
Here comes the sun...
Here comes the sun,
And I say
It's alright.
~ George Harrison ~ (date of birth)
2006 : That so many writers have been prepared to accept a kind of martyrdom is the best tribute that flesh can pay to the living spirit of man as expressed in his literature. One cannot doubt that the martyrdom will continue to be gladly embraced. To some of us, the wresting of beauty out of language is the only thing in the world that matters. ~ Anthony Burgess (date of birth)
26
2005 : The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge. ~ Victor Hugo (date of birth)
2006 : Sure, ninety percent of science fiction is crud. That's because ninety percent of everything is crud. ~ Theodore Sturgeon (date of birth)
27
2005 : The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit — for gallantry in defeat — for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature. ~ John Steinbeck (date of birth)
2006 : Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ~ (date of birth)
28
2005 : Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being. ~ Michel de Montaigne (date of birth)
2006: If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away." ~ Linus Pauling (date of birth)
Ranking system:
- 4 : Excellent - should definitely be used. (Perhaps, at most, only one quote per day should be ranked thus by any user, as to avoid confusions)
- 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.
