Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
~ Joseph Brackett ~
  • selected by Kalki
2005
Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way . . . out of that a new holiday was born . . . a Festivus for the rest of us! ~ Jerry Stiller as "Frank Costanza" in Seinfeld (Festivus holiday)
  • proposed by UDScott
2006
The final frontier is perhaps the most difficult, but it's also the most important — and that's the frontier of the human spirit. For too long, people have allowed differences on the surface — differences of color, ethnicity, and gender — to tear apart the common bonds they share. And the human spirit suffers as a result.
Imagine a world in which we saw beyond the lines that divide us, and celebrated our differences, instead of hiding from them. Imagine a world in which we finally recognized that, fundamentally, we are all the same. And imagine if we allowed that new understanding to build relations between people and between nations. ~ Wesley Clark
  • proposed by Kalki
2007
I think we should be very clear on this... this country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment... It was the idea that people could talk, reason, have dialogue, discuss the issues. It wasn't founded on the idea that someone would get struck by a divine inspiration and know everything right from wrong. I mean, people who founded this country had religion, they had strong beliefs, but they believed in reason, in dialogue, in civil discourse. We can’t lose that in this country. We've got to get it back. ~ Wesley Clark (born 23 December 1944)
  • proposed by Kalki
2008
Working together, we can build a world in which the rule of law — not the rule of force — governs relations between states. A world in which leaders respect the rights of their people, and nations seek peace, not destruction or domination. And neither we nor anyone else should live in fear ever again. ~ Wesley Clark
  • proposed by Kalki
2009
"Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless. ~ Samuel Smiles
  • proposed by Zarbon
2010
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. ~ Samuel Smiles
  • proposed by Kalki
2011
Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform. ~ Samuel Smiles
  • proposed by Kalki
2012
Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side.
~ Samuel Smiles ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2013
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.
~ Norman Maclean ~
  • proposed by bystander
2014
All I'm saying is, if you celebrate Festivus, you may live a little longer.
You are getting back to the essentials, to the days of gods on mountaintops and howling wolves. Because you are saying the holidays are in the heart, a celebration of being alive with our fellow humans. For that purpose, an aluminum pole will do just as well as anything else — as long as it's not stuck in the wrong place.
~ Jerry Stiller ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2015
Welcome, newcomers. The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people! And now you're gonna hear about it!
~ Seinfeld : The Strike ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2016
Unless we are willing to escape into sentimentality or fantasy, often the best we can do with catastrophes, even our own, is to find out exactly what happened and restore some of the missing parts.
~ Norman Maclean ~
  • proposed by bystander
2017
For some people the revelation comes too late that life is best kept to the essentials. Some people are given their last rites and that person might say in their last breath, "I should have celebrated Festivus."
~ Jerry Stiller ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2018
In the ancient days when gods played their own games, and had their own celebrations, tossing lightning bolts between mountaintops, hurling great boulders — Festivus came out of that. It's a holiday that celebrates being alive at a time when it was hard to be alive.
There was no Christ yet, no Yahweh, no Buddha. There were great ruins and raw nature. But there was a kindling spark of hope among men. They celebrated that great thunderous storms hadn't enveloped them in the past year, that landslides hadn't destroyed them. They made wishes that there crops would grow in the fields, that they'd have food the next year and the wild animals wouldn't attack and eat them.
There's something pure about Festivus, something primal, raw in the hearts of humans.
~ Jerry Stiller ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2019
Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.
The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed.
~ Samuel Smiles ~
  • proposed by Zarbon
2020 
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Suggestions

Festivus is celebrated on this date. Many Humanism quotes would also be appropriate for HumanLight

It's a Festivus miracle! ~ Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld, celebrating this "holiday" on this date.

  • 2 ~ UDScott 21:51, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 - --Mister Six 11:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 20:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. ~ Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

  • 3 Zarbon 05:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 18:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a war based on false claims. ~ Wesley Clark

  • 2 Zarbon 05:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
  • 2 Kalki 18:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash. ~ Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

  • 3 bystander (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 3 ♞☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 20:43, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

A mystery of the universe is how it has managed to survive with so much volunteer help. ~ Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire

  • 3 bystander (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 3 ♞☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 20:43, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


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