Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • First "Quote of the Day" at Wikiquote, selected by Nanobug
2004
The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and God fulfils himself in many ways lest one good custom should corrupt the world. ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Idylls of the King
  • selected by Kalki
2005
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. ~ John Quincy Adams (born 11 July 1767)
  • proposed by Kalki
2006
Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. ~ John Quincy Adams (born 11 July 1767)
  • proposed by Kalki
2007
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~ E. B. White
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2008
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed. ~ E. B. White
  • proposed by Kalki
2009
I can never join with my voice in the toast which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes. I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right. ~ John Quincy Adams (in response to Stephen Decatur's famous phrase, "our country, right or wrong". The Latin phrase is an ancient one that can be translated as : "Let justice be done though heaven should fall.")
  • proposed by Kalki
2010
Life's meaning has always eluded me and I guess it always will. But I love it just the same. ~ E. B. White
  • proposed by Kalki
2011
"In God We Trust." … It is simple, direct, gracefully phrased: it always sounds well — In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true. And in a measure it is true — half the nation trusts in Him. That half has decided it. ~ Mark Twain
  • proposed by MosheZadka
2012
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
~ Harper Lee ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2013
One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
~ E. B. White ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2014
Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.
~ E. B. White ~
  • proposed by Zarbon
2015
Before you can be an internationalist you have first to be a naturalist and feel the ground under you making a whole circle. It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members. A club, moreover, or a nation, has a most attractive offer to make: it offers the right to be exclusive. There are not many of us who are physically constituted to resist this strange delight, this nourishing privilege. It is at the bottom of all fraternities, societies, orders. It is at the bottom of most trouble. The planet holds out no such inducement. The planet is everybody's. All it offers is the grass, the sky, the water, the ineluctable dream of peace and fruition.
~ E. B. White ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2016
When you consider that there are a thousand ways to express even the simplest idea, it is no wonder writers are under a great strain. Writers care greatly how a thing is said — it makes all the difference. So they are constantly faced with too many choices and must make too many decisions.
I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn't know where else to go.
~ E. B. White ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2017
The duties of man consist in alternate action and meditation, mutually aiding and relieving each other; and both, directed with undeviating aim, to the progressive improvement of himself and his fellow creatures. Heaven has given him in charge, to promote the happiness and well-being of himself, his wife, his children, his kindred, his neighbors, his fellow citizens, his country, and his kind; and the great problem of legislation is, so to organize the civil government of a community, that this gradation of duties, may be made to harmonize in all its parts — that in the operation of human institutions upon social action, self-love and social may be made the same.
~ John Quincy Adams ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2018
I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear.
~ E. B. White ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2019
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E. B. White ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2020 
Rank or add further suggestions…

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.

Suggestions

In God we trust, all others must submit an X.509 Certificate - Source unknown

  • "In God We Trust" was added to the dollar on July 11th
  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 08:51, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 121a0012 June 27, 2005 03:52 (UTC) (I love this, but I think it may be too esoteric for a general audience.)
  • 1 AllanHainey June 27, 2005 11:37 (UTC) (X.509 don't know what it is but sounds like a USA tax thing - too obscure)
    • Actually, it's an ITU standard. Your browser almost certainly implements it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 121a0012 (talk • contribs) 02:41, 28 June 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 05:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 18:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. ~ E. B. White (born July 11, 1899)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 00:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4, but would prefer to extend this to "Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere."
  • 1 Zarbon 05:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC) ("1" without Kalki's expansion)

New York is part of the natural world. I love the city, I love the country, and for the same reasons. The city is part of the country. When I had an apartment on East Forty-Eighth Street, my backyard during the migratory season yielded more birds than I ever saw in Maine. ~ E. B. White

  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 05:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki (talk · contributions) 09:03, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as long as it is presented honestly, fearlessly, and clearly. ~ E. B. White

  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 00:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 05:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language. ~ Harper Lee (in To Kill a Mockingbird — first published on 11 July 1960)

  • 3 Kalki 18:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 18:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks. ~ Harper Lee (in To Kill a Mockingbird — first published on 11 July 1960)

  • 3 Kalki 18:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC) with a VERY strong lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 18:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. ~ Harper Lee (in To Kill a Mockingbird — first published on 11 July 1960)

  • 3 Kalki 18:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 18:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. ~ Ingrid Newkirk

  • 3 DanielTom (talk) 16:49, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
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