Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
Love me for love's sake, that evermore thou may'st love on, through love's eternity. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  • selected by Kalki
2005
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead. ~ Bertrand Russell (born 18 May 1872)
  • selected by Kalki
2006
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
~ Omar Khayyám (born 18 May 1048)
  • selected by Kalki
2007
The opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new. ~ Bertrand Russell
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2008
To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true. ~ Bertrand Russell
  • proposed by Kalki
2009
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
~ Omar Khayyám ~
  • proposed byNingauble
2010
The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation not only enlarges the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with the rest. In this citizenship of the universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the thralldom of narrow hopes and fears. ~ Bertrand Russell
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2011
Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance. ~ Bertrand Russell
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2012
Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.
~ Bertrand Russell ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2013
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.
~ Bertrand Russell ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2014
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
~ Bertrand Russell ~
  • proposed by Kalki
2015
Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
~ Bertrand Russell ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2016
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
~ Bertrand Russell ~
  • proposed by InvisibleSun
2107
In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.
~ Bertrand Russell ~
in
~ Unpopular Essays ~
  • proposed by Ningauble
2018
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly. The State and Property are the great embodiments of possessiveness; it is for this reason that they are against life, and that they issue in war. Possession means taking or keeping some good thing which another is prevented from enjoying; creation means putting into the world a good thing which otherwise no one would be able to enjoy. Since the material goods of the world must be divided among the population, and since some men are by nature brigands, there must be defensive possession, which will be regulated, in a good community, by some principle of impersonal justice. But all this is only the preface to a good life or good political institutions, in which creation will altogether outweigh possession, and distributive justice will exist as an uninteresting matter of course.
The supreme principle, both in politics and in private life, should be to promote all that is creative, and so to diminish the impulses and desires that center round possession.
~ Bertrand Russell ~
  • proposed by DanielTom
2019 
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!

Suggestions

A gospel of work for work's sake never produced any work worth doing. ~ Bertrand Russell (born May 18, 1872)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 05:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves. ~ Bertrand Russell

  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 19:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 05:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility. ~ Bertrand Russell

  • 4 ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 01:43, 18 May 2019 (UTC) 3 Kalki 19:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 22:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Zarbon 05:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own. ~ Bertrand Russell

  • 3.5 DanielTom (talk) 16:07, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. ~ Bertrand Russell

  • 3 DanielTom (talk) 15:41, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I sent my soul through the invisible,
Some letter of that after-life to spell,
And by and by my soul returned to me,
And answered, I myself am heaven and hell. ~ Omar Khayyám

  • 3 DanielTom (talk) 11:48, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour, no vastness, anywhere; only triviality for a moment, and then nothing. ~ Bertrand Russell

  • 3 DanielTom (talk) 14:11, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


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