Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. ~ Aristotle
  • selected by Nanobug
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)
  • proposed by Kalki
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 ~
  • proposed by Jeff Q
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)
  • proposed by Kalki
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)
  • proposed by Kalki
2009
In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a sacred white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, — even though it be covertly, and by snatches. ~ Herman Melville
  • proposed by Kalki
2010
It is — or seems to be — a wise sort of thing, to realise that all that happens to a man in this life is only by way of joke, especially his misfortunes, if he have them. And it is also worth bearing in mind, that the joke is passed round pretty liberally & impartially, so that not very many are entitled to fancy that they in particular are getting the worst of it. ~ Herman Melville
  • proposed by Kalki
2011
There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is. ~ Herman Melville, in The Confidence-Man
  • proposed by Kalki
2012
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 ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2013
I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also.
~ Herman Melville ~
in
~ Moby-Dick ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2014
Nobody had more class than Melville. To do what he did in Moby-Dick, to tell a story and to risk putting so much material into it. If you could weigh a book, I don’t know any book that would be more full. It’s more full than War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov. It has Saint Elmo’s fire, and great whales, and grand arguments between heroes, and secret passions. It risks wandering far, far out into the globe. Melville took on the whole world, saw it all in a vision, and risked everything in prose that sings. You have a sense from the very beginning that Melville had a vision in his mind of what this book was going to look like, and he trusted himself to follow it through all the way.
~ Ken Kesey ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2015
Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2016
I would to God Shakspeare had lived later, & promenaded in Broadway … that the muzzle which all men wore on their soul in the Elizebethan day, might not have intercepted Shakspers full articulations. For I hold it a verity, that even Shakspeare, was not a frank man to the uttermost. And, indeed, who in this intolerant universe is, or can be? But the Declaration of Independence makes a difference.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2017
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2018
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2019
All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2020 
Rank or add further suggestions…

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

  • Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. ~ Herman Melville in Moby-Dick

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

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.
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 03:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

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) with a lean toward 4
  • 1 Zarbon 14:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 03:03, 29 July 2013 (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)
  • 0 Kalki 19:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC) because this is apparently a misattribution, at least in terms of authorship. 1 Kalki 11:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC) I would rank this higher, but I don't believe this actually originates with Badnarik.
  • PhR 18:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)NPOV prevents me from commenting on Badnarik. Check http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rita_Mae_Brown right here.
You seem to assert that this did not originate with Badnarik, which is fairly well evidenced, but you have numerically ranked this high, by our system in which the highest favor is 4, and the lowest is 0. ~ Kalki 19:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
I didn't mean to rank the quote at all, Kalki, so I just removed the ranking. Hope it's ok. --PhR 00:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

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)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 2.5 //Gbern3 (talk) 03:03, 29 July 2013 (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)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 2.5 //Gbern3 (talk) 03:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
  • 3 bystander (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2016 (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) with a lean toward 3.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 ~ DanielTom (talk) 01:39, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 03:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
We have got to choose between two results. With these four millions of Negroes, either you must have four millions of disfranchised, disarmed, untaught, landless, thriftless, non-producing, non-consuming, degraded men, or else you must have four millions of land-holding, industrious, arms-bearing, and voting population. Choose between the two! Which will you have?
~ Richard Henry Dana, Jr. ~
  • 4. Anti-slavery quote, explaining the difference between the benefits of free men versus the detriment of slavery. Speaker was born on August 1. Source here. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:21, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
  • 2 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

This is how evil thrives. We find an herb that cures disease, and someone will make a poison from it. We forge iron to make a better plow, and someone will make a sharper sword. There can be no power that evil will not corrupt. ~ David Gemmell (dob)

  • 3 bystander (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
  • 2 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.

Never let anger, or outrage, or fear affect you. That is easy advice to give, but hard to follow. Men will bait you, they will laugh at you, they will jeer. But it is just noise… They will hurt the people you love. They will do anything to make you angry or emotional. But the only way you can make them suffer is to win. And to do that you must remain cool. ~ David Gemmell

  • 3 bystander (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
  • 2 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.

It is the curse of absolute power… There is no one to admonish you, no laws save those you make. We like to believe there is something special, even alien, about evil. We like to think that tyrants are different from the rest of us. That they are somehow inhuman. They are not. They are merely unchained, unfettered; free to do as they please. ~ David Gemmell

  • 3 bystander (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
  • 2 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies; not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
Says a writer whom few know, "Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it. Much so with respect to other emergencies involving considerations both practical and moral, and when it is imperative promptly to act."
~ Herman Melville ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
His was the scorn which thinks it not worth the while to be scornful. Those he most scorned, never knew it.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
Whoever is not in the possession of leisure can hardly be said to possess independence. They talk of the dignity of work. Bosh. True Work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundreths of all the work done in the world is either foolish and unnecessary, or harmful and wicked.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
A man of true science... uses but few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose; whereas the smatterer in science... thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood.
~ Herman Melville ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.


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