Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ~ Emma by Jane Austen
  • selected by Nanobug
2004
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
  • selected by Kalki
2005
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. ~ John Buchan (born 26 August 1875)
  • proposed by Kalki
2006
We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves. ~ John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir
  • proposed by Kalki
2007
Our sufferings have taught us that no nation is sufficient unto itself, and that our prosperity depends in the long run, not upon the failure of our neighbors but their successes. ~ John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir
  • proposed by Kalki
2008
I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it. ~ Christopher Isherwood
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2009
If you can't see God in All, You can't see God at All. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi
  • proposed by Zarbon
2010
Happiness comes out of contentment, and contentment always comes out of service. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi
  • proposed by Zarbon
2011
Spread love everywhere you go; first of all in your house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile. ~ Mother Teresa
  • proposed by Kalki
2012
The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.
~ John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2013
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
~ Mother Teresa ~
  • proposed by Zarbon
2014
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
~ Mother Teresa ~
  • proposed by Zarbon
2015
I often feel that worse than the most fiendish Nazis were those Germans who went along with the persecution of the Jews not because they really disliked them but because it was the thing.
~ Christopher Isherwood ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2016
Once again the crust of civilization has worn thin, and beneath can be heard the muttering of primeval fires. Once again many accepted principles of government have been overthrown, and the world has become a laboratory where immature and feverish minds experiment with unknown forces. Once again problems cannot be comfortably limited, for science has brought the nations into an uneasy bondage to each other.
~ John Buchan ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2017
The Nazis hated culture itself, because it is essentially international and therefore subversive of nationalism. What they called Nazi culture was a local, perverted, nationalistic cult, by which a few major artists and many minor ones were honored for their Germanness, not their talent.
~ Christopher Isherwood ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2018
They have planned a life for you — from the cradle to the grave and beyond — which it would be easy, fatally easy, to accept. The least wandering of the attention, the least relaxation of your awareness, and already the eyelids begin to droop, the eyes grow vacant, the body starts to move in obedience to the hypnotist’s command. Wake up, wake up — before you sign that seven-year contract, buy that house you don’t really want, marry that girl you secretly despise. Don’t reach for the whisky, that won’t help you. You’ve got to think, to discriminate, to exercise your own free will and judgment. And you must do this, I repeat, without tension, quite rationally and calmly. For if you give way to fury against the hypnotists, if you smash the radio and tear the newspapers to shreds, you will only rush to the other extreme and fossilize into defiant eccentricity.
~ Christopher Isherwood ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2019
I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?
~ Mother Teresa ~
  • proposed by Zarbon
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

If those lessons are truly learned, then Columbia's crew will have made an indelible contribution to the endeavor each one valued so greatly. ~ CAIB report volume I, released 26 August 2003

  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 ~ lacking context as presented. I might rank an extended version of it higher, but am not really inclined toward it.
  • 1 Zarbon 16:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 22:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC) No context.
  • 1 allixpeeke (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I must honor those who fight of their own free will, he said to himself. And I must try to imitate their courage by following my path as a pacifist, wherever it takes me. ~ Christopher Isherwood

  • 3 InvisibleSun 04:56, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 19:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
  • 1 Zarbon 16:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC) Who is the "he" in "he said to himself"?
  • 2 (leaning toward 3) allixpeeke (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right. ~ John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir

  • 3 Kalki 19:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 16:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
  • 1 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there. ~ John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir

  • 3 Kalki 19:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 16:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2.5 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
  • 3 (leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Tomorrow always becomes today and yesterday is always gone. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi

  • 3 because nothing stays forever. Zarbon 06:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 23:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 22:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
  • 3 allixpeeke (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. ~ Mother Teresa

  • 2 Zarbon 06:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
  • 3 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come.We have only today. ~ Mother Teresa

  • 2 Zarbon 06:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 22:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
  • 2 (leaning toward 1) allixpeeke (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The snail lives the way I like to live; he carries his own home with him. ~ Julio Cortázar

  • 2 Zarbon 06:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 2.5 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
  • 3 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 03:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Women are, and should be treated as, the equals of men.
~ Wendy McElroy ~

Note: In the U. S., 26 August is Women's Equality Day.

  • 4 allixpeeke (talk) 03:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
  • 2 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:48, 25 August 2015 (UTC) I agree with the sentiment, but don’t believe the rather simple expression is all that original to this particular manifestation of it.
As an organized force, American feminism can be dated from the radical anti-slavery movement, known as abolitionism, that arose in the early 1830s and coalesced around the libertarian William Lloyd Garrison.  Although there were many courageous women who advanced the status of women prior to this period, such as Anne Hutchinson and Frances Wright, they spoke out as individuals rather than as part of a self-conscious organization dedicated to women's rights.

Abolitionism demanded the immediate cessation of slavery on the grounds that every human being was a self-owner and had a moral jurisdiction over his or her own body.  Gradually, abolitionist women began to apply the principle of self-ownership not only to the slaves, but also to themselves.

~ Wendy McElroy ~

Note: In the U. S., 26 August is Women's Equality Day.

  • 3 (leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 03:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
  • 2 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:48, 25 August 2015 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
If "war is the health of state," as Randolph Bourne claimed, then it is the death of individualism.  At its roots, the individualist tradition is anti-statist, and war inevitably involves an increase in state power that never seems to roll back to prewar levels when peace resumes.
~ Wendy McElroy ~
  • 3 (leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 03:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
  • 2 though the previous quote by this person is relevant to this date for the mentioned reason, I do not know that this one is.
The paternalist is a sentimentalist at heart, and the sentimentalist is always potentially cruel.
~ Christopher Isherwood ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.
~ Christopher Isherwood ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
The images which remained in the memory are not in themselves terrible or rigorous: they are of boot-lockers, wooden desks, lists on boards, name-tags in clothes — yes, the name pre-eminently; the name which in a sense makes you nameless, less individual rather than more so: Bradshaw-Isherwood, C.W. in its place on some alphabetical list; the cold daily, hourly reminder that you are not the unique, the loved, the household’s darling, but just one among many.
~ Christopher Isherwood ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.
~ Christopher Isherwood ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
He now realized that he must dissociate himself from the Communists, even as a fellow traveler. He might, in certain situations, accept them as allies but he could never regard them as comrades. He must never again give way to embarrassment, never deny the rights of his tribe, never apologize for its existence, never think of sacrificing himself masochistically on the altar of that false god of the totalitarians, the Greatest Good of the Greatest Number — whose priests are alone empowered to decide what "good" is.
~ Christopher Isherwood ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
~ Mother Teresa ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 12:05, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set. Everyone can reach this love through meditation, spirit of prayer, and sacrifice, by an intense inner life.
~ Mother Teresa ~
  • 3 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 12:05, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

"Isn't it extraordinary that the Prime Minister of our country can't even urge his Party to back his own position. Weak! Weak! Weak!" - Tony Blair -- Proposed by DarcyTy 1 (talk · contributions)

  • 1, with a lean toward 0 — This does not have any apparent relation to this date, and does not seem a highly noteworthy statement. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 00:18, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


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