Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003
A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." ~ Stephen Crane
  • selected by Nanobug
2004
It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion. ~ Tertullian
  • selected by Kalki
2005
It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. ~ Paul Dirac (born 8 August 8 1902)
  • proposed by 121a0012
2006
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees! ~ Emiliano Zapata (born 8 August 1879)
  • proposed by Kalki
2007
There is a quiet at the heart of love,
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.
~ Sara Teasdale ~ (born 8 August 1884)
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2008
If I am peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity.
~ Sara Teasdale ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2009
If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,
If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,
Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness.
~ Sara Teasdale ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2010
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. ~ Shirley Jackson (in The Haunting of Hill House; died 8 August 1965)
  • proposed by Jeff Q
2011

Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten —
These were the same for Sappho as for me.

Two thousand years — much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men —
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.

~ Sara Teasdale ~

  • proposed by Kalki
2012
We have to be reminded over and over again that Nature is full of paradoxes.
~ Henry Fairfield Osborn ~
  • proposed by Fossil
2013
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it's the exact opposite!
~ Paul Dirac ~
  • proposed by Jeff Q
2014
Most people understand the need for neutrality. The real struggle is not between the right and the left — that's where most people assume — but it's between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. And no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on either of those qualities.
~ Jimmy Wales ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2015
Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests. … Let us be understood. If the Japanese surrender after the destruction of Hiroshima, having been intimidated, we will rejoice. But we refuse to see anything in such grave news other than the need to argue more energetically in favor of a true international society, in which the great powers will not have superior rights over small and middle-sized nations, where such an ultimate weapon will be controlled by human intelligence rather than by the appetites and doctrines of various states.
Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only goal worth struggling for. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments — a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.
~ Albert Camus ~
  • proposed by Kalki, for 70th anniversary of this published reaction of Albert Camus to news of the first use of a nuclear weapon.
2016
I want to die a slave to principles. Not to men.
~ Emiliano Zapata ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2017
O lovely chance, what can I do
To give my gratefulness to you?
You rise between myself and me
With a wise persistency;
I would have broken body and soul,
But by your grace, still I am whole.
~ Sara Teasdale ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2018
That Action is best which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions misery.
~ Francis Hutcheson ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2019
I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.
~ Sara Teasdale ~
  • 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

To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. ~ Richard Nixon, Resignation Speech, August 8, 1974

  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 05:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 121a0012 02:49, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • 3AllanHainey 12:00, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 22:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 0 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC); strikes me as too politically pointed until 2009
  • 2 InvisibleSun 10:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 0 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good; and when one's acting in a certain manner has this tendency he has a right thus to act. ~ Francis Hutcheson (date of birth)

  • 3 Kalki 11:18, 7 August 2005 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Make songs for Death as you would sing to Love —
But you will not assuage him. He alone
Of all the gods will take no gifts from men.
~ Sara Teasdale

  • 3 InvisibleSun 10:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,—
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.
~ Sara Teasdale

  • 4 InvisibleSun 10:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.
~ Sara Teasdale ~

  • 3 Kalki 23:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Military occupation causes terrorism. ~ Chris Eubank

  • 2 Zarbon 05:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Democracy cannot be exported with a gun. ~ Chris Eubank

  • 2 Zarbon 05:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 17:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Sleep peacefully people, there will not be a war. ~ Alija Izetbegović

  • 2 Zarbon 05:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 17:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

But the voice of anatomy, like the voice of all nature, never reaches the mental ear of the Great Commoner. It is the novel province of anatomy to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the structure, the origin and the history of man. ~ Henry Fairfield Osborn

  • 4 Fossil 21:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 22:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

This chain of human ancestors was totally unknown to Darwin. He could not have even dreamed of such a flood of proof and truth. ~ Henry Fairfield Osborn

  • 3 Fossil 21:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 22:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Care for the race, even if the individual must suffer -- this must be the keynote of our future. ~ Henry Fairfield Osborn

  • 3 Fossil 21:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 22:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


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