Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ~ Macbeth by William Shakespeare
  • selected by Nanobug
2004
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. ~ Charles H. Spurgeon
  • selected by Kalki
2005
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~ Nelson Mandela (born 18 July 1918)
  • proposed by Aphaia
  • Very similar statements are attributed to others, but this particular form seems to be sourced to his autobiography.
2006
To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained — who can say this is not greatness? ~ William Makepeace Thackeray (born 18 July 1811)
  • proposed by Kalki
2007
The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray
  • proposed by Kalki
2008
When I die, my money's not gonna come with me. My movies will live on for people to judge what I was as a person. I just want to stay curious. - Interview for London's Sunday Telegraph magazine, November 2007 ~ Heath Ledger (release date for his final major movie role as The Joker in The Dark Knight) (FYI, Ledger unexpectedly died earlier this year and this is his last film)
  • proposed by Boylo
2009
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray
  • proposed by Kalki
2010
A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning. ~ Nelson Mandela
  • proposed by Kalki
2011
If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. ~ Nelson Mandela
  • proposed by Kalki
2012
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2013
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for. But, my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2014
The law changes and I don't. How I stand vis-à-vis the law at any given moment depends on the law. The law can change from state to state, from nation to nation, from city to city. I guess I have to go by a higher law. How's that? Yeah, I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma.
~ Hunter S. Thompson ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2015
No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
  • proposed by bystander
2016
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
  • proposed by bystander
2017
When I first made Night of the Living Dead, it got analyzed and overanalyzed way out of proportion. The zombies were written about as if they represented Nixon’s Silent Majority or whatever. But I never thought about it that way. My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I’m pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.
~ George A. Romero ~
  • proposed by Kalki in regard to his recent death.
2018
The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
~ Nelson Mandela ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2019
Fortune, good or ill, as I take it, does not change men and women. It but develops their character. As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write, so the heart is a secret even to him (or her) who has it in his own breast. Who hath not found himself surprised into revenge, or action, or passion, for good or evil, whereof the seeds lay within him, latent and unsuspected, until the occasion called them forth?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2020 
Rank or add further suggestions…

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

  • 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
  • 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
    • used 20 February 2006, proposed by User:Sir John Alexander Macdonald
  • The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us. ~ Nelson Mandela
    • used 9 May 2006, selected by Kalki

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

Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook. ~ Adolf Hitler, from Mein Kampf (published that day)

  • 2 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 09:20, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 121a0012 June 27, 2005 03:52 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 23:17, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 but on a more relative date. Zarbon 06:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

  • 3 Kalki 18:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:22, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 06:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not good at future planning. I don't plan at all. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. I don't have a day planner and I don't have a diary. I completely live in the now, not in the past, not in the future. ~ Heath Ledger

  • 2 Kalki 01:21, 20 July 2008 (UTC) 4 Kalki 21:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC) different quote was used for actual opening day of The Dark Night thus downgrading my ranking of this one.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 05:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. ~ Nelson Mandela (birthday)

—This unsigned comment is by Japhy (talk • contribs) .
  • 2 Kalki 19:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Boychick, wake up! Be something! Make your life something good. For the love of an old man who sees in your young days his new life, for such love take the world in your two hands and make it like new. Go out and fight so life shouldn't be printed on dollar bills. ~ Clifford Odets (DoB)

  • 3 Ningauble 17:56, 23 June 2009 (UTC) seasonally appropriate for recent graduates (and a non-recent-graduate nephew of mine)
  • 2 Zarbon 05:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

  • 3 Kalki 19:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 18:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Bravery never goes out of fashion. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

  • 3 Kalki 19:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 18:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Morality is temporary, wisdom is permanent. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

—This unsigned comment is by D is for d (talk • contribs) .
  • 2 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers. ~ Thomas Samuel Kuhn

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Paranoia is just another word for ignorance. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others- the living- are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles — a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other — that kept me going. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The importance of Liking Yourself is a notion that fell heavily out of favour during the coptic, anti-ego frenzy of the acid era — but nobody guessed back then that the experiment might churn up this kind of hangover; a whole subculture of frightened illiterates with no faith in anything. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here — not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong , but to those who see it coming and jump aside. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

What passed for society was a loud, giddy whirl of thieves and pretentious hustlers, a dull sideshow full of quacks and clowns and philistines with gimp mentalities. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I have always believed that a man can fairly be judged by the standards and taste of his choices in matters of high-level plagiarism. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

I detest racialism because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man. ~ Nelson Mandela

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. ~ Nelson Mandela

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. ~ Nelson Mandela

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. ~ Nelson Mandela

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

Democracy is based on the majority principle. This is especially true in a country such as ours where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires that the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.
In the political order we have established there will regular, open and free elections, at all levels of government — central, provincial and municipal. There shall also be a social order which respects completely the culture, language and religious rights of all sections of our society and the fundamental rights of the individual. ~ Nelson Mandela

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.

Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. ~ Nelson Mandela

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

It always seems impossible, until it is done. ~ Nelson Mandela

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 04:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

  • 3 bystander (talk) 06:40, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:57, 16 July 2014 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
Originally suggested at 21 March, moved here (and with extended form to 10 December), as more appropriate dates.

"Let the strivings of us all, prove Martin Luther King Jr. to have been correct, when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war. Let the efforts of us all, prove that he was not a mere dreamer when he spoke of the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace being more precious than diamonds or silver or gold." - Nelson Mandela, acceptance and Nobel lecture, (1993-12-10)

  • proposed by User:Jeandré (20 March 2007) > [renamed] > Jeandré du Toit (talk · contributions)
  • 3 Kalki 21:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC) Despite the merits of the quote, I am inclined to seek to use it another day, and focus on "Spring" quotes for this date (21 March). Note: It has become far more established a norm to post quotes with relationships to the dates, and after today, I will be moving this to 2 alternative dates 18 July which is Mandela's birthday, and in slightly extended form to the date of its delivery 10 December, which happens to be "Human Rights Day", and the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I am currently very inclined to use it on that date this year. ~ Kalki 2020·03·20
  • 3, to be used on a day associated with King or Mandela. - InvisibleSun 23:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 04:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


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