Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
Oh, if a man tried to take his time on earth and prove before he died what one man's life could be worth, I wonder what would happen to this world? ~ Harry Chapin
  • selected by Kalki
2005
That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. ~ Willa Cather (born (7 December 1873)
  • proposed by UDScott
2006
I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for. ~ Thornton Wilder (died 7 December 1975)
  • proposed by UDScott
2007
It's an alethiometer. It's one of only six that were ever made. Lyra, I urge you again: keep it private. … It tells you the truth. As for how to read it, you'll have to learn by yourself. Now go — it's getting lighter... ~ Philip Pullman (Quote from The Golden Compass (1995) the movie adaptation opening on 7 December 2007)
  • proposed by Kalki
2008
Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is. ~ Willa Cather
  • proposed by Kalki
2009
There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. ~ Willa Cather
  • proposed by Kalki
2010
That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed. ~ Algernon Sydney (executed on this date, no birthdate known)
  • proposed by Kalki
2011
Being able to do as one pleases is the natural goal of the libertarian, but having nothing to do is not. While it may be correct to say that the human species is badly prepared for having nothing to do, it is quite a different matter to say that it is badly prepared for the freedom to do as one pleases. People who are able to do as they please may work very hard, given the opportunity to do interesting work. ~ Noam Chomsky
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2012
And I feel that something's coming, and it's not just in the wind.
It's more than just tomorrow, it's more than where we've been,
It offers me a promise, it's telling me "Begin",
I know we're needing something worth believing in.
~ Harry Chapin ~
  • proposed by bystander
2013
In a three-minute stretch between commercials, or in seven hundred words, it is impossible to present unfamiliar thoughts or surprising conclusions with the argument and evidence required to afford them credibility. Regurgitation of welcome pieties faces no such problem.
~ Noam Chomsky ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2014
As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me. … This world is full of suffering, distress, violence and catastrophes. Students must decide: does something concern you or not? I say: look around, analyze the problems, ask yourself what you can do and set out on the work!
~ Noam Chomsky ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2015
We live in an age that makes truth pass for treason, and as I dare not say anything against it, so the ears of those that are about me will probably be found too tender to hear it. This my trial and condemnation do sufficiently evidence.
~ Algernon Sydney ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2016
Hello my Country
I once came to tell everyone your story
Your passion was my poetry
And your past my most potent glory
Your promise was my prayer
Your hypocrisy my nightmare
And your problems fill my present
Are we both going somewhere?
~ Harry Chapin ~
  • proposed by bystander
2017
This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark.
~ Willa Cather ~
  • proposed by bystander
2018
The world is always full of brilliant youth which fades into grey and embittered middle age: the first flowering takes everything. The great men are those who have developed slowly, or who have been able to survive the glamour of their early florescence and to go on learning from life.
~ Willa Cather ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2019
I am persuaded to believe that God had left nations to the liberty of setting up such governments as best pleased themselves, and that magistrates were set up for the good of nations, not nations for the honor and glory of magistrates.
~ Algernon Sydney ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2020
Rank or add further suggestions…

The Quote of the Day (QOTD) is a prominent feature of the Wikiquote Main Page. Thank you for submitting, reviewing, and ranking suggestions!

Ranking system
4 : Excellent – should definitely be used. (This is the utmost ranking and should be used by any editor for only one quote at a time for each date.)
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.
An averaging of the rankings provided to each suggestion produces it’s general ranking in considerations for selection of Quote of the Day. The selections made are usually chosen from the top ranked options existing on the page, but the provision of highly ranked late additions, especially in regard to special events (most commonly in regard to the deaths of famous people, or other major social or physical occurrences), always remain an option for final selections.
Thank you for participating!

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

Suggestions

My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate — that's my philosophy. ~ Thornton Wilder in The Skin of Our Teeth (date of death)

  • 3 ~ UDScott 23:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 2 Zarbon 15:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Nice quote, but in general, and mostly for consistency, I'd rather see quotes on the writer's date of birth (April 17 in this case, which already has used two of his quotes and has several more suggested) than death. Matchups 18:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • bystander (talk) 17:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC) I agree with Matchups, especially when there are so many usable quotes from people born this day.

Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success. ~ Thornton Wilder (date of death)

  • 3 ~ UDScott 23:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 07:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • * 3 Kalki 23:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC) I have found an early citation of this quote to T. T Munger in A dictionary of thoughts: being a cyclopedia of laconic quotations (1906) by Tryon Edwards
  • 1 Zarbon 15:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1, as above Matchups 18:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day. ~ Thornton Wilder (date of death)

  • 3 ~ UDScott 23:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 15:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1, as above Matchups 18:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations. ~ Noam Chomsky

  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 23:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 15:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Matchups 18:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 bystander (talk) 17:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Jingoism, fear, racism, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you’re trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them. ~ Noam Chomsky

  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Matchups 18:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 20:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.

A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies. ~ Willa Cather

  • 3 Kalki 23:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC) with a lean toward 4, but would now extend this to :
To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 06:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Matchups 18:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 bystander (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2012 (UTC) (extended version)

Ever hear the old saying that beauty is only skin deep? Well, right now, all you can see is the beauty. ~ DragonBall Z's Zarbon Paul Dobson (born December 7)

  • 4 because the quote defines me. And furthermore, the dynamic parallel of beauty outside and beast inside is drawn here. Zarbon 06:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 01:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 23:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You only saw the beauty side of me before, now with great pleasure, I introduce you to the beast! ~ DragonBall Z's Zarbon Paul Dobson (born December 7)

  • 3 because anger compensates where beauty cannot and in all fury, takes a life of its own. Zarbon 06:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 01:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 23:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man. ~ Leopold Kronecker

  • 2 Zarbon 03:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 01:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 This is an important statement in the history of mathematics. Matchups 18:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 bystander (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2012 (UTC) Perhaps a more proper interpretation, at least as it apples to mathematics, would be "God made natural numbers; all else is the work of man." While Leopold Kronecker may have been important figure in the development of number theory, I fail to see the importance of this statement to mathematics or its history.

No one conquers who doesn't fight. ~ Gabriel Biel (date of death)

  • 2 Zarbon 03:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 01:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC) Omnia Vincit Amor
    • I think the concept of "love conquers all" is being abused ruthlessly by you. But to make things clear, this quote means that you cannot conquer someone who does not fight...meaning a peaceful person is protected against the most powerful attack. I don't think you understood the idea behind the quote. Zarbon 06:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Nay, "who" refers to the subject "no one", it is not the object of "conquers." (Cf. "They also serve who only stand and wait." —John Milton, On His Blindness, 1652 ) Contemporary vernacular, seemingly wary of the relative clause, favors a conditional particular construction, "If you don't fight then you can't conquer," to express the qualified universal intended here. ~ Ningauble 14:11, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

  • 4 This seems to me a defining quote for this day. Matchups 18:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 20:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC) Might eventually rank it higher, but might also wish it extended more.
  • 1 this can be moved to Roosevelt's birthday. Otherwise, I don't see the point of detailing the Pearl Harbor attack or we'd have to take note of all the other historic events that occurred. Zarbon 04:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
If there is a well-known quote associated with a historic event, by all means make note of it. See July 4 and July 20 for examples of what has already been done. Matchups 04:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them. ~ Noam Chomsky

  • 3 bystander (talk) 17:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 3 ♞☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:50, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world. ~ Willa Cather

  • 3 bystander (talk) 17:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 2 ♞☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:50, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again. ~ Willa Cather

  • 3 bystander (talk) 17:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 3 ♞☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:50, 4 December 2012 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

Oh, if a man tried
To take his time on earth
And prove before he died
What one man's life could be worth,
I wonder what would happen to this world.

~ Harry Chapin I Wonder What Would Happen to this World

  • 3 bystander (talk) 17:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
  • This quote was already used on this date in 2004. ~ ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡


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