Quote of the day/January
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We are still developing the new procedures for selecting quotes of the day. This page is for quote of the day proposals specifically for dates in the month of January, 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.
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
- I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster. ~ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, published that day
2006 : Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die. ~ E. M. Forster (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 23:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
2
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. ~ Isaac Asimov (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 01:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise — even in their own field. ~ Isaac Asimov (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 01:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending. ~ Isaac Asimov (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 01:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. ~ Isaac Asimov (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 01:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
2006 : How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection...That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers. ~ Isaac Asimov (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 01:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Other previous "Quotes of the Day" by Asimov (date of birth):
2004 February 22 : The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. ~ Isaac Asimov
3
2006 : Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age? ~ Cicero (Date of birth)
- 3 ~ UDScott 00:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
4
Men learn little from others' experience. But in the life of one man, never the same time returns. ~ T.S. Eliot, in Murder in the Cathedral (Date of death)
2006 : I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ~ Isaac Newton (Date of birth)
5
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. ~ {{Calvin Coolidge]] (Date of death)
- 3 ~ UDScott 00:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
2006 : Evil spreads with the wind; truth is capable of speading even against it. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda (Date of birth)
6
History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth. ~ E.L. Doctorow (Date of birth)
- 3 ~ UDScott 00:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
2006 : In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want... everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear... anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt';, in a speech delivered on this day in 1941
- 3 ~ UDScott 00:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
7
2006 : There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for all of us to live and delight in. ~ Gerald Durrell (Date of birth)
- 3 ~ UDScott 00:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
8
2006 : For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk. ~ Stephen Hawking (date of birth)
- 3 ~ Kalki 22:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
9
I think it is possible, and that is the most dramatic element in modern civilization, that a human truth is opposed to another human truth no less human, ideal against ideal, positive worth against worth no less positive, instead of the struggle being as we are so often told, one between noble truth and vile selfish error. ~ Karel †apek (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 23:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
2006 : Life will not perish! It will begin anew with love; it will start out naked and tiny; it will take root in the wilderness, and to it all that we did and built will mean nothing — our towns and factories, our art, our ideas will all mean nothing, and yet life will not perish! Only we have perished. Our houses and machines will be in ruins, our systems will collapse, and the names of our great will fall away like dry leaves. Only you, love, will blossom on this rubbish heap and commit the seed of life to the winds. ~ Karel †apek (date of birth)
10
"You are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf, I am the smaller one on its upper side," said the dewdrop to the lake. ~Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds.
- Posted on 7 January 2006, at the January 10th QotD page, by IP 67.37.190.144
- 2 Kalki 23:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC) (no clear correlation to the date)
Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.. ~ Robinson Jeffers (date of birth)
Science and mathematics
Run parallel to reality, they symbolize it, they squint at it,
They never touch it: consider what an explosion
Would rock the bones of men into little white fragments and unsky the world
If any mind for a moment touch truth. ~ Robinson Jeffers (date of birth)
I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine. ~ Robinson Jeffers (date of birth)
2006 : Know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful...
... the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty
of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.
~ Robinson Jeffers ~ (date of birth)
- 3 ~ Kalki 23:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
11
"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint." ~ Alexander Hamilton (day of Birth)
Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity. ~ Alexander Hamilton (date of birth)
- 3 ~ Kalki 23:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
2006 : The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. ~ Alexander Hamilton (date of birth)
- 3 ~ Kalki 23:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
12
2006 : Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. ~ Edmund Burke (date of birth)
13
2006 : I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul." ~ Émile Zola (Date of publication of J'accuse)
14
2006 : Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. ~ Albert Schweitzer (date of birth)
15
2006 : 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 (iWikipedia Day - 5th anniversary of the Wikipedia project)
16
2006 : What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love... I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. (Martin Luther King Day in U.S.)
17
2006 : Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. ~ Benjamin Franklin (date of birth)
18
2006 : There is absolutely nothing that can be taken for granted in this world. ~ Robert Anton Wilson
19
2006 : They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ~ Edgar Allan Poe (date of birth)
20
2006 : I don't understand politics. I don't understand the concept of two sides. And I think that probably there's good on both sides, bad on both sides, and there's a middle ground. But it never seems to come to the middle ground. And it's very frustrating watching it, and seemingly we're not moving forward. ~ David Lynch (date of birth)
21
2006 : So far as prejudice, or prepossession of opinion prevails over our minds, in the same proportion, reason is excluded from our theory or practice. Therefore if we would acquire useful knowledge, we must first divest ourselves of those impediments and sincerely endeavor to search out the truth: and draw our conclusions from reason and just argument, which will never conform to our inclination, interest or fancy but we must conform to that if we would judge rightly." ~ Ethan Allen
22
- added by IP 216.211.27.27
- 0 Kalki 19:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC) No well noted author, no tie in for the date.
2006 : Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. ~ Robert E. Howard (date of birth)
23
2006 : To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law — a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security. ~ Walter M. Miller, Jr. (date of birth)
24
2006 : Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
~ William Congreve ~ (date of birth)
25
2006 : 'While fame impedes and constricts, obscurity wraps about a man like a mist; obscurity is dark, ample, and free; obscurity lets the mind take its way unimpeded. Over the obscure man is poured the merciful suffusion of darkness. None knows where he goes or comes. He may seek the truth and speak it; he alone is free; he alone is truthful, he alone is at peace. ~ Virginia Woolf in Orlando (date of Woolf's birth)
26
2006 : I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes... But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. ~ Douglas MacArthur (date of birth)
27
2006 : If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. ~ Lewis Carroll (date of birth)
28
2006 : Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. ~ Colette (date of birth)
29
2006 : Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace." ~ Milan Kundera ~Chosen for the Chinese New Year: ( First day of 4704, a "Year of the Dog" in the Chinese calendar)
30
Pissing in your shoes won't keep your feet warm for long. -Icelandic Proverb
- 0 ~ Kalki 23:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC) Amusing, but not really great "Quote of the day" material; no tie in for the date, and as I heard it in Newfoundland, rather than Iceland, the proverb actually was "boots" rather than "shoes".
We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt (date of birth)
- 3 Kalki 23:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
2006 : The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt (date of birth)
- 4 ~ Kalki 23:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
31
"Real life?" What's that? ~ Grant Morrison (date of birth)
- User:Mister Six
- 1 Kalki 19:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Everyone does magic all the time in different ways. 'Life' plus 'significance' = magic. ~ Grant Morrison (date of birth)
- 3 ~ Kalki 19:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Science is clearly one of the most profound methods that humans have yet devised for discovering truth, while religion remains the single greatest force for generating meaning. ... if some sort of reconciliation between science and religion is not forthcoming, the future of humanity is, at best, precarious. ~ Ken Wilber
- 3 Kalki 19:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
At this point in history, the most radical, pervasive, and earth-shaking transformation would occur simply if everybody truly evolved to a mature, rational, and responsible ego, capable of freely participating in the open exchange of mutual self-esteem. There is the 'edge of history.' There would be a real New Age.
- 3 Kalki 19:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
2005 : I have one major rule: everybody is right. More specifically, everybody — including me — has some important pieces of the truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace. ~ Ken Wilber
Other past "Quotes of the day" used from people born this day: 2004 (May 11) : The integral vision embodies an attempt to take the best of both worlds, ancient and modern. But that demands a critical stance willing to reject unflinchingly the worst of both as well. ~ Ken Wilber
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.
