Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. ~ Friedrich Schiller

• selected by Kalki

2005

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. ~ Jorge Luis Borges (born 24 August 1899)

• proposed by Kalki

2006

If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves. ~ Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922)

• proposed by InvisibleSun

2007

It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is. ~ Jorge Luis Borges (date of birth)

• proposed by Kalki

2008

A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• proposed by Kalki

2009

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
~ Robert Herrick (DoB)

• proposed by Ningauble

2010

Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• proposed by Kalki

2011

Gibbon observes that in the Arabian book par excellence, in the Koran, there are no camels; I believe if there were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this absence of camels would be sufficient to prove it is an Arabian work. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• proposed by Kalki

2012

• proposed by Kalki

2013

• proposed by Kalki

2014

• proposed by InvisibleSun

2015

• proposed by Kalki

2016

• proposed by Kalki

2017

• proposed by Kalki

2018

• proposed by Kalki

2019

• 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

I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. ~ Yasser Arafat (b. August 24. 1929 according to Egyptian birth certificate)

• 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:17, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
• 1 Kalki 23:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC) * 2 Kalki 02:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
• 4 because it's very brilliant. A hint at the "you won't like me when I'm angry" bit as well as the levels of rage which are best kept intact. I knew Arafat said something brilliant like this, it's a good thing it was located. It's also reminiscent of the "carry a big stick" bit which I adore. Zarbon 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• 1 InvisibleSun 20:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
• 1 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• 2 (I think) allixpeeke (talk) 02:24, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to be controlled by good people, by people who love you. ~ Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951)

—This unsigned comment is by None (talk • contribs) .

• 2 Kalki 02:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
• 1 Zarbon 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 20:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
• 1 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC) Card has done much better. I may work on his article.
• 1 allixpeeke (talk) 02:24, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist. ~ Jorge Luis Borges (date of birth)

• 3 Kalki 16:09, 23 August 2005 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
• 2 InvisibleSun 03:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
• 1 Zarbon 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2.5 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• 4 allixpeeke (talk) 02:24, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end. ~ Max Beerbohm (born August 24, 1872)

• 3 InvisibleSun 06:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• 3 Kalki 02:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC) with a slight lean toward 4.
• 1 Zarbon 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased — short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed. ~ Max Beerbohm

• 3 InvisibleSun 06:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• 3 Kalki 00:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC) 2 Kalki 02:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
• 1 Zarbon 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2.5 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Strange, when you come to think of it, that of all the countless folk who have lived before our time on this planet not one is known in history or in legend as having died of laughter. ~ Max Beerbohm

• 3 InvisibleSun 06:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 02:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
• 2 Zarbon 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2.5 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• 3 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Man never falls so low that he can see nothing higher than himself. ~ Theodore Parker

• 3 Zarbon 05:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 23:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 20:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so. ~ Theodore Parker

• 3 because although the easy way may not be the way of truth, it is the course which many have taken. Zarbon 05:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• 3 Kalki 23:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
• 3 InvisibleSun 20:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
• 2.5 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• 3 (strongly leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world? ~ Stephen Fry

• 2 Zarbon 05:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 23:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
• 3 InvisibleSun 20:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• 3 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things. ~ Jorge Luis Borges (DoB)

• 2.5 Ningauble 17:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• 3 Kalki 23:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

A Chinese prose writer has observed that the unicorn, because of its own anomaly, will pass unnoticed. Our eyes see what they are accustomed to seeing. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The impossibility of penetrating the divine pattern of the universe cannot stop us from planning human patterns, even though we are conscious they are not definitive. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
• 3 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us. … Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. In one of them I am your enemy. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 (strongly leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 (leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 (leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 (leaning toward 3) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of library. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
• 3 (strongly leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The future is inevitable and precise, but it may not occur. God lurks in the gaps. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
• 3 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
• 2 (strongly leaning toward 3) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The time for your labor has been granted. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 1 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

It seemed incredible to me that day without premonitions or symbols should be the one of my inexorable death. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 (strongly leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 1 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

What one man does is something done, in some measure, by all men. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 (leaning toward 3) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I will pause to consider this eternity from which the subsequent ones derive. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Reality is not always probable, or likely. But if you're writing a story, you have to make it as plausible as you can, because if not, the reader's imagination will reject it. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

My undertaking is not difficult, essentially... I should only have to be immortal to carry it out. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

As I think of the many myths, there is one that is very harmful, and that is the myth of countries. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
• 3 (strongly leaning toward 4) allixpeeke (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Saxo Grammaticus wrote with justification in his Gesta Danorum: "The men of Thule are very fond of learning and of recording the history of all peoples and they are equally pleased to reveal the excellences of others or of themselves."
Not the day when the Saxon said the words, but the day when an enemy perpetuated them, was the historic date. A date that is a prophecy of something still in the future: the day when races and nations will be cast into oblivion, and the solidarity of all mankind will be established. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 20:18, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Time can't be measured in days the way money is measured in pesos and centavos, because all pesos are equal, while every day, perhaps every hour, is different. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 20:18, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

A poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 allixpeeke (talk) 20:18, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 (strongly leaning toward 3) allixpeeke (talk) 20:18, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Universal history is the history of a few metaphors. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

Life itself is a quotation. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 20:18, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendor. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

It is venturesome to think that a coordination of words (philosophies are nothing more than that) can resemble the universe very much. It is also venturesome to think that of all these illustrious coordinations, one of them — at least in an infinitesimal way — does not resemble the universe a bit more than the others. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 1 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Our nothingness differs little; it is a trivial and chance circumstance that you should be the reader of these exercises and I their author. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

When one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 1 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC) (It would seem that at moment of confession, the actor becomes both actor and witness.  Why ought the two be mutually exclusive?)

That one individual should awaken in another memories that belong to still a third is an obvious paradox. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 (leaning toward 3) allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

There's no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
• 3 (leaning toward 2) allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

One of the schools of Tlön goes so far as to negate time; it reasons that the present is indefinite, that the future has no reality other than as a present hope, that the past has no reality other than as a present memory. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 3 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment — the moment when a man knows forever more who he is. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

All men, in the climactic instant of coitus, are the same man. All men who repeat one line of Shakespeare are William Shakespeare. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 23:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• 3 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• 1 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• 1 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• 2 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• 1 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• 1 allixpeeke (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)